


The angels have gone, the songs have gone silent

by justanotherboi



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Discussion of Death, Ghosts, Growing Up, M/M, Mentions of Death, Mild Horror/Spookiness, Romance, Supernatural Elements, and also sad sometimes, and the longing, ghost!winwin, human!ten, it's about the yearning, just a boy and his ghost :), they're in love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:28:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 37,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27254944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justanotherboi/pseuds/justanotherboi
Summary: One is a boy,Two are the footprints in the snow,Three are the kisses sent in a gentle, cold breeze.Count your candies, count your coins;Four is knowing that you love a ghost,And five is knowing that he loves thee.
Relationships: Dong Si Cheng | WinWin/Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten
Comments: 11
Kudos: 27
Collections: Winwin's Witching Hour





	1. The moon and the stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [WinwinsWitchingHour Day 7 - Halloween!](https://twitter.com/wwficfest)
> 
> The next parts should be up in the upcoming weeks, the planning for this fic kind of spiraled. I will be working hard on it!  
> While this fic isn't exactly horror, there's some spookiness and mentions of horror elements. It doesn't, however, become graphic at any point. It's also vaguely set in North America.  
> The title comes from The Fight is Over from Over the Garden Wall, and the summary is inspired by One is a Bird from the same series.  
> A huge thank you to my beta for going through this fic so quickly, and thank you to my friends for encouraging me :)

Prologue

Ten was seven years old when his mother ushered him out of their family Chrysler and tutted when he refused to take any step further out of the gloomiest parking lot he’d ever seen. He’d heard plenty of tuts from other mothers, some of whom were his aunties or grandmothers, but his mother’s scowl and the clear clicks of her tongue against her teeth always bore deeply into him. Unnerving. She slid the door shut, and to that sound, his feet carried him up the length of the yellow line and onto the sidewalk, ready for her to follow.

Mothers.

The house they visited was a tiny, two-storey affair. The porch was gloomy as well, and Ten walked around in circles on it to test if the sour-smelling wood would give away (it didn’t). The kitchen had windows, which was a good thing for his mother. From the sink she could look left and easily keep an eye on the vague area where she wanted to put the TV and couch. There was a little cupboard under the stairs, too, and Ten asked if she would let him sleep there sometimes. She said no.

Cupboards under the stairs were meant for cake tins, extra oil, boxes of tea, plastic bags, the recycling bin, dry foods, and potato bags. The ten-kilo ones. _They’re not meant for boys,_ she said, and she took his little hand and squeezed it tightly. Ten looked up for the first time since he was tugged unceremoniously out of the car: she had a strange look on her face. He squeezed her hand back.

It was gone.

The two bedrooms upstairs were bigger than expected. He would be able to put his keyboard against the wall opposite his bed. His mother had a ceiling-to-floor mirror that the previous owner left behind - Ten spent a few minutes goofing around in front of it while his mother was busy talking to the real estate agent. He was this middle aged man and looked so mild. That’s it, just mild, not ordinary or plain, just mild. Like there was the hint of an idea that smelt of something different hanging around him. Ten paid no mind to the murmurs downstairs and jumped up and down, waved his arms around, and struck a few poses he remembered from the magazines he read at his mother’s nail salon.

There was a flash of light outside.

Ten looked.

Nothing.

The house was a fine house, in his opinion, if he ignored the fact that it stood by the side of a gloomy old graveyard.

o.0.o

Halloween afternoon. Eight years old. Gloves.

Johnny, from three houses down, always says that the graveyard isn’t scary at all. Of course he’d say that - he has to walk the dog every morning, and it’s the perfect traffic-free area with old trees that bow together on either side of the paths, like in fairy tales. But the thing is that Johnny only says that to his little brother Mark, and Mark’s, well, he’s a little kid. If he doesn’t say that to Mark, then Johnny has no-one to walk the dog with.

Johnny’s a big kid. He’s two years older than Ten and much taller, too. He can keep up with Ten climbing around on the play structures in the park and outrun him on the soccer pitch. When they go to the community pool, he’s the one in charge and blows up the floaters for both Ten and Mark.

So when Ten walks home from school on another gloomy day to find Johnny paralyzed at the graveyard’s gate, he simply has to stop.

“What’s it?” Ten asks.

“I lost my gloves,” Johnny says. He turns around to flex his bare hands at Ten. “They weren’t at school.”

“Uh-oh.”

“I took them off when I was walking Daisy this morning. They gotta have fallen right outta my pockets.”

“That’s dumb of you.” Johnny glares at him, but as big as Johnny is, Ten wins the fights, so it doesn’t matter. “If y’know they’re there, why aren’t you going?”

“That’s…”

The wind whistles between the iron gates. Ten watches it mess up Johnny’s black hair. With his bright red jacket, he makes such a strange contrast against the grey sky, the yellow October trees, the iron gates, the low stone wall on which the gates sprout from, and the infinite rows of granite stretching on behind them. It’s from some brand, Ten doesn’t know, but his mother was talking about how good it was, and that Mark will be able to wear it when Johnny grows out of it. _Like with your cousins’ jackets_ , she said. Ten doesn’t especially like wearing his cousins’ clothes, but he’s eight, and as far as he knows, eight year olds don’t have a say in these things.

Johnny’s pale face is another contrast to his black hair.

Ten laughs, how he laughs! The laughter pinches his ribs and he continues to laugh. “You’re scared!”

“Maybe.”

Ten falters.

Johnny’s big, and Ten might be the one winning their fights - but Johnny’s the street’s big brother. Big kids aren’t supposed to be afraid of anything.

“... But you said it wasn’t scary.”

“Cause Daisy’s a very strong dog,” Johnny reasons. “She protects us. I usually don’t have to be scared.” That’s fair. Daisy’s very bulky and a good runner too. Above all, she’s a wise dog.

“But Daisy’s not here.”

“I _know_.”

Ten puts his hands on his hips. “So, just go get Daisy and look for your gloves!” he says, maybe a bit too loudly.

“I can’t! My mom’s home. She’s gonna think I’m crazy, and I already got grounded from watching TV this week! We have our trick-or-treating tonight, I’m not gonna sacrifice it for gloves!”

“Wait, what did you do?”

“That’s not important,” Johnny states with his hand out like he’s also saying _stop._ Ten doesn’t think that he’s saying it because he wants to come back to the scary graveyard discussion. He’ll have to ask Taeyong, from three streets down, about it - the two older boys are like two peas in a pod.

“... So what’re you gonna do, Johnny?”

Johnny shrugs and looks down. Ten looks down, too, in case it makes Johnny feel better. He looks down a little longer, and a little longer, and a little longer, with a little furrow in his brows.

“Well, I’m gonna tell you what I’m gonna do.” Ten straightens his back. “I’m gonna go get your gloves.”

“Ten! You don’t have to!”

“You’re not the boss of me. I wanna do it. ‘Cause I’m no scaredy-cat,” Ten mocks, but he leans forward to pat Johnny’s arm reassuringly. “I’ll come back.” Johnny eventually smiles, and that’s all Ten needs before he sets off.

The graveyard is quiet.

It’s a gloomy thing, nestled in the back of the neighbourhood. The church that looks after it is maybe a block away, so the graveyard stands alone behind its fencing. Ten’s house is right up against the right quadrant of it; it takes him ten steps from his paint-chipped porch before arriving at the hedge covering the chain-link fence that separates him from the graves. There are no cars speeding by the roads close to it, and no uproar from the houses that surround it. No music, no cartoons spilling from the TVs - in this weather, there aren’t any people in their backyards either.

It’s very lonely without Daisy’s huffing and sniffling and pitter patters, Johnny’s encyclopedia facts, and Mark’s children’s educational songs.

Ten stops in the middle of the path. He might be a little lost - he’s supposed to have come across a big angel by now, all in white stone perched above a regular grave. Her wings are huge, and her eyes are blank. Statue eyes are always blank, Ten doesn’t know why. It’s weird.

Maybe she’s a ghost.

Ten shudders at the thought. How he wishes this was easier.

There is a flash of light in the corner of his eye.

Ten turns around: his shoes skid on the gravel and send pebbles flying. His heart hasn’t beaten so fast since he dropped one of the bowls from his auntie’s wedding set - it goes _boom, boom,_ deep in his chest like there’s a big drum inside of him, draining him, resounding throughout his body for no good reason at all (he hopes it’s for no good reason).

If there was a good reason, it would be because their peculiar little house holds many peculiar secrets, and one of them is that on some days, in his bedroom, Ten will see a flash of light from his window.

He searches between the littler angels and biggler angels atop of graves for a car, but there are none. He searches between the branches that come swooping down for a bird, but there are none. He searches between the fences and hedges for someone, but there is no-one.

There is another flash of light, clearer now. The graveyard’s divided in a bunch of plots labelled from A to 60, and the light came from the 50’s area.

He’s never had two flashes in a row.

Nothing good comes from seeking trouble, his mother always says. Ten’s feet stay put. But then again, she also says that curiosity is the only desire that propels man forward: another flash of light cuts through the bleary scenery, and Ten’s right foot hesitates.

 _Over here,_ he feels a childish voice say. Not hears, feels. As if it came from inside him.

Another flash of light.

 _Over here_.

The gravel crunches under his feet.

 _Over here_.

Ten runs down the path, passing lots 26 to 34, G to 47, the light flashing in sync with every few of his steps. The pull tab of his zipper keeps clinking on the metal teeth, and his backpack hits his spine whenever his foot connects with the ground. His thermos clunks loudly with every hit. Another flash of light. He weaves between two large graves with Mark-sized crosses on their tops. He hops above a bushel of purple flowers. Another flash of light.

That flash was close by. Ten slows down and finally catches his breath, small chest heaving. He puts his hands on his knees while he rests. His new shoes are covered with dirt and wet grass. The wind passes through the red trees above him, leaves rustling, and a wind chime hanging by a grave nearby gently fills in the emptiness of this area.

“... What is it?” Ten asks, to no-one.

No-one replies.

Maybe he should have thought this through.

“... What do you want?” Ten asks again, to no-one. The wind chime tinkles again. He huffs, frowning properly - did he just imagine everything? Usually, he’s able to distinguish between reality and the tall tales he tells his friends, but this is different. He didn’t make anything up, he swears. Scout’s honour, although he isn’t in the scouts at all, but he saw it on TV. He bends down to smear some mud off the white rubber of his Converses. It’s quite stubborn, but his shoe’s damp enough to help him through it.

Red leaves slide across the wet grass as another gust of wind blows through the graveyard. Ten jerks his hands away as they blow across his feet. They slide for a few more graves until they start spinning, like a mini-tornado. A cyclone. Ten watches them.

His hands suddenly turn cold and numb; they’re practically white. Nervousness builds into his chest like a bubble and he hopes that it won’t pop anytime soon. The leaves are still spinning.

Frost starts to cover the ground.

“I’m scared,” Ten says, as if someone’s listening. “I’m scared, what do you want me to do!”

No-one replies.

Something pushes against Ten’s back.

Ten’s feet propel forward a few steps. He tries to turn around and find his assailant, but his feet slip and his whole body starts to fall. His shoulder’s the first part of him to hit the cold ground, followed by the side of his head onto the frosty grass, and then the rest of him. Ten quickly sits up, fingers digging into the ground, and looks around.

No-one is there.

In all 20 hectares of the gloomy graveyard, Ten is alone amongst the mist.

 _Look_.

Beside him are Johnny’s red gloves.

o.0.o

February 28. Nine years old. F#.

“I heard something in my room.”

“Show me where.”

Ten tugs on his mother’s nightdress and leads her across the creaking floorboards, through the orange sliver of light pouring from his bedroom. It’s snowing outside - the clumps of snow are bright when they pass in the streetlight’s aureole. He was watching them since he couldn’t sleep.

“Over here,” Ten points towards the space left to his bed. “Footsteps.”

“Light or heavy?”

“Light,” Ten says. “Like the way Chenle patters across the room with his slippers.”

Ten’s mother hums. Maybe she’s thinking about little baby cousin Chenle’s ladybug slippers. She strokes his hair absentmindedly, and he presses his head further into her chest. He misses the years where he could press himself against her warm stomach, but this is good too. He can hear her heartbeat, the way it’s so calm. Like steady beats. Ocean waves. Like the grandfather clock reassuring him that time hasn’t stopped.

“Maybe you heard a squirrel on the roof,” she offers. Ten shakes his head. It really was in his room, on his floor.

She gently cups Ten’s face so that he looks up at her. “Are you scared?”

Ten opens his mouth to answer. Nothing comes out. His eyebrows furrow. “I don’t know.”

“That’s okay. There’s nothing to be afraid of.” Ten shifts his gaze away from her. Maybe she’s right. “Do you want to sleep with me for tonight?”

Ten nods immediately.

His mother is warm: mothers are prickly and mothers are soft, mothers are strict and mothers are generous, but Ten’s mother is always warm, never cold. Her room is dark, but he isn’t scared at all. The bed is soft. His eyelids are heavy, and he drifts, away and away and away-

Ten hears a single note from his keyboard.

He opens his eyes and searches for his mother: she looks like she’s still sleeping and must’ve not heard anything, not even in her dream. Perhaps he imagined it. He hopes he imagined it. He strains his ears in case anything else happens.

There is nothing to be afraid of.

It doesn’t explain why his mother, supposedly in her sleep, brings him in closer, arms wrapped around him protectively.

o.0.o

March 9. Nine years old. The box.

Ten finds a book in the drawer of his mother’s night table. It’s not that he was snooping there on purpose, it’s that she was talking to his auntie on the phone, and he couldn’t show her the new dance he came up with. He got bored.

Originally, he waited for her at the dining table, working on his multiplications. He wasn’t listening much, but he heard his mother say that she was going to leave her job at the nail salon to “ _focus on the second business_ ”. As far as Ten knows, there is no second business. She leaves in the morning to the nail salon, and comes back in the evening from the nail salon with new stories. She also told her sister to take care of the place while she was gone, but if she was going to cause so much trouble by leaving, she simply shouldn’t have.

At that point he was shooed upstairs.

The book looks old and very official - the way library books do when you take the sleeve cover off. All official and plain with no picture on the cover, the only decoration being a golden border. There’s not even a title. He settles on his bed with a pillow under his hips and opens it to the sort-of-middle.

There is that flash of light outside. He ignores it.

The book is confusing, but Ten likes the drawings a lot. They have a very traditional look to them, all inked meticulously. The pages are old and some of them are stained, and one of the drawings - that of an old, ornate grave with the statue of a weeping woman lying atop of a stone coffin - is ruined by dried up splashes of coffee. Ten scoffs.

He flips through some more pages. The book smells a little strange, like it soaked up a bunch of water at some point. It would explain why the bottom of so many pages are wrinkled. Somewhere back near the beginning of the book, he finds a most perplexing drawing.

Ten shivers a bit. He gets up to pull his bed covers out from under him, then over him. Lying on his stomach, he continues his foray into the book.

It’s a drawing of an old shed with a pile of firewood in front of it. There’s a lovely dog, Ten doesn’t know what kind, but it’s the type of tallish, lanky dog that you’d trust to be in a farm. It’s on the opposite side of the firewood, and it’s barking.

The old floor in his bedroom creaks. His ceiling light becomes dimmer. It’s nothing special.

Judging by the bare tree and the sheer amount of empty space, it must be winter in the drawing. Ten follows the pile of snow on the shed’s roof down and back to the dog barking. From the dog barking, he follows its ears down to its legs, and finally its handsome paws. In the snow, before the dog, there are little footsteps, as if made by tiny boots.

“ _Children’s ghosts:_ ” Ten reads from under the drawing, “ _Mischievous pranksters, and how to deal with them._ Hmm.” What a strange book.

Ten hears the same light footsteps from earlier and to the noise, puts the book down and lifts himself on his hands. His covers slip down to the curve of his back. _Tup-tup-tup_ , there it is again, closer. Goosebumps trail their way up his arms and he wonders if they can appear on his neck as he shivers once more. _Tup-tup-tup._

At the end of his bed, two small dips appear. They weigh the mattress down and the covers wrinkle around those two spots. Ten watches incredulously, breath caught in his throat. It’s like someone’s leaning on his mattress.

But there is no-one.

“Hel-” Ten is cut off by a small giggle. It’s a childish, high-pitched sound, similar to four-year-old Mark’s noise when he follows Johnny around.

His mouth hangs agape.

Ten is the barking dog.

_There’s a child ghost haunting this here home._

“Y- you!” Ten yells, pointing at the end of his bed like he has an accusation ready. “You!”

The ghost giggles again, it feels like he’s being made fun of; Ten grips his bedsheets and sharply inhales before telling it off.

And then the dips in his mattress disappear. The temperature of the room comes back up to normal. His ceiling light comes back to full brightness.

He sits back on his heels, and contemplates. Contemplating is this very grand and difficult activity where you philosophize, or decide to about things logically, or both. Ten imagines it like talking to yourself at a diner while you wait for your food to arrive.

Being haunted on T.V is quite scary. There’s usually murderous intent involved, seeing as everyone dies some way or another by the end of a movie. You can be possessed and do horrible, unspeakable things, or you can be constantly psychologically terrified. In a milder way, you can be harassed by a ghost and have it throw stuff at you all the time. If your house is haunted, Ten thinks, you should invest in plastic dishware. It’ll just bounce right off.

But none of those things happened.

And, moreso… it’s a little kid. Mark’s a little kid. Ten likes to believe that Mark doesn’t have any murderous intent, he’s just annoying at times, the same way his little cousins are annoying. He’s loud and he doesn’t think a lot because his brain’s too small to get there. He blows his chubby cheeks out and presses on them to make fart noises. He steals snacks from them, and he always has a story with no head or tail to tell. He’s a good child.

Little children aren’t able to haunt. Ten nods to himself, and himself across the diner table nods to Ten, too.

A sudden thought makes Ten frown. He tangles the sheets between his fingers and looks out the window. It’s a gloomy day outside and he spots his mother down by the garden. There’s nothing else to notice apart from that. What a gloomy place to be in, with no mother and no friends.

Ten returns to his saddest thought of the week: if Mark died and became a ghost, he’d be so completely and utterly lost.

Little children don’t deserve to die.

Ten gets up from his bed and his seat at the diner. He has to do something, and an idea starts to blossom in his head; this dreary March winter day can become something else, can be brighter, let the snow melt and the flowers grow once more.

He hurries to the basement to find the perfect shoebox - a nearly intact one, chosen with care. With his mother outside, he can freely go back upstairs to rifle through the kitchen cupboards, picking up packaged cookies and candies. The box is slowly filled with shortbread, Pocky, White Rabbits, hard caramels and soft caramels, and finally, if the child isn’t hungry, a scented eraser (strawberry, he doesn’t like it that much but it’s very cute). If the child seeks Ten out, then the child must surely roam their peculiar house too, and wouldn’t ghosts want to pass through the darkest corners of the house, in the cover of the night or not?

With his box tucked under his arm, Ten opens the cupboard under the stairs and crawls into it. In the furthest corner where the stairs slope down to meet the floor, here is where his ghost will find his offering.

He takes a moment to wonder how he would feel if the box would remain untouched in the following days. His heart aches a little.

He smooths his hand across the box’s lid. Recently, he hasn’t been able to see his cousins much. There’s always something happening. Maybe his house got too gloomy for anyone to want to visit him - maybe he’s gloomy too, now. Walking on gloomy floors stained his feet grey, like when he walks barefoot outside before his mother catches up with him and puts him in the bath. The greyness went inside his feet, and from down you can only go up. In his gloominess, Ten finds himself to be lonely, sometimes.

Being a lonely child must be the worst thing in the world, he muses. But being a lonely ghost child with no-one to see you or hold you, with no warm mother or jam cookies, must be the worst thing in the universe.

“All for you,” Ten says to no-one. “Just for you, or you can share. You have to grow big and strong so that you can make friends quickly. Maybe go to school. Okay?”

He pats the lid in case the ghost can’t see in the dark to indicate where it is.

“You can rely on me. Okay?”

That night, the old house creaks and groans, and Ten sleeps soundly.

o.0.o

October 25. Twelve years old. A bracelet.

A locket, a mirror shard, a ribbon, a doll bed, a shiny ballpoint pen;

A feather, a thimble, a keychain fallen off a bag;

A good-luck pencil, a penny, a paper cup, a Barbie head;

A tuft of something’s fur, an unscented eraser, a key that can go anywhere and nowhere:

These are a small number of things Ten has been given in return.

The offering box used to get emptied in a matter of days. In the morning, Ten would discover it empty, and by nightfall something would appear on his rotting windowsill. The footsteps that he was getting used to recognizing and the occasional giggle gradually stopped, and he was no longer distracted by the occasional light coming from the graveyard.

It was a double-edged sword, even if it’s not remotely something big or significant enough to call a sword; it was bittersweet, that’s the better term. Ten would practice his scales and find himself staring out the window, fingers paused above his keys, waiting for no-one.

The ghost’s hunger became satiated in the three years since he started this secret routine. He checks on his offerings every few weeks, seldom fills it back up. His gifts come by rarely.

Ten stares at his ceiling sometimes, focusing on a patch of the popcorn pattern until everything starts to swirl around it, and he will think about his ghost.

This doesn’t happen very often. Things are picking up. Apparently, Johnny has a girlfriend now, and that’s something kids their age are supposed to do. His best-friend-in-the-grade Kun doesn’t like going to the arcade anymore, he thinks it’s stupid, but the fact of the matter is that he doesn’t actually think that, the boys in his class do. Ten makes fun of him for it, drags him in anyways and says it’s payback for all the times he had to go to the aviation museum. That place is just the same old planes and same old stick-up-their-ass staff, and you might call Ten mean for going against Kun’s wishes, but he knows that Kun likes the flight-simulation game. He loves it, much more than he loves the boys in his class. Taeyong says that’s just how it is when you’re twelve. That’s how the cookie crumbles. Now tell me, does my eyeliner look okay?

Ten also wants to dye his hair. He brings it up to his mother often, but it would seem that things are picking up for her too. That second business keeps her busy, and it keeps Ten busy in the sense that he has to remember to not ask about it. She sold the family Chrysler. _Your cousins won’t be coming around often anymore, I don’t need to drive them around_ , she said. _That sounds like something you decided,_ Ten shot back - she didn’t have anything to say back to him. Just tutted. The click of her tongue against her teeth.

He still wants to dye his hair. Taeyong dyed his own hair blue last week, much to the despair of his mothers: life must be pretty free when you’re fifteen.

“You wouldn’t look good with red hair,” Taeyong says from the lawn chair. He’s reading his English book like the good little student he is. “I’d go with blond.”

Ten huffs. His hot air becomes a cloud around him. “You don’t have taste.”

“I do have taste.”

“Hard to tell.”

“How rude you are to me, your mentor in life. But more seriously,” Taeyong sits up and puts his book on his lap, crossing his hands over the cover. Ten feels compelled to mimic him, but chooses to stay slumped in his puffed jacket. “You’ve been looking awfully tired lately. Has anything happened?”

That’s a loaded question from the get-go.

There’s no means of watering it down, and at the same time there’s no way he will speak of it aloud: so in his mind he kneels in the dark space of the cupboard under the stairs, and confesses.

Ten hears voices from the graveyard.

Every year, Ten swears that there’s something new about him. At first, he tried to dismiss it as puberty, but after asking Kun, it seems that puberty doesn’t mean developing the ability to perceive random, awkward noises more than just the house shifting; it doesn’t entail feeling like there’s something watching him, watch himself, in his mother’s bedroom mirror. Within his twelfth year came the voices that creep up on him when he walks home from school.

They’re not from his ghost - he doesn’t recognize their voices. They don’t say much, and if they did, they’re not exactly speaking loud enough for him to hear. Maybe they’re talking behind his back. Who knows. If this happened to someone else, Ten would lean forward and ask how scary it is.

It’s the eternal problem: Ten doesn’t know if he’s scared.

Do you fear buses? Do you fear the subway? Do you fear the whispers and the laughter and the grunts and the _okays_ that fill the carriage when you snake through a tunnel? Do the disembodied voices only make sense when you’re led to assume you’re not alone?

If there’s something Ten has learned from his house, it’s that he is rarely alone.

His mother seems to notice it, too. He can’t say for sure it’s the voices, but she definitely notices his behaviour. She’ll ask roundabout questions that Ten doesn’t know the answers to, and beckons him close when the days are gloomier than usual to stroke his hair, like he needs comforting.

Maybe she’s the one who’s seeking comfort. Who knows.

There’s also the fact that the old book about ghosts is always on top of her night table now. Sometimes it’s Ten’s turn to ask her roundabout questions, and his mother will look at him like she’s still trying to make a decision. Her hand on her chest. Thinking.

Ten’s thinking, too. But Taeyong is also thinking, quite worriedly based on his expression, so it must be put to an end.

“I’m just tired of school,” Ten says. Taeyong makes a small nod. “I don’t know how you’re re-reading your government assigned literature for the third time.”

“I like it,” Taeyong says. He pats the cover affectionately. Nerd.

“What’s it about?”

“It’s a story about love.”

“Ugh. If love is that riveting, it _has_ to be a different breed than Johnny and his girlfriend.”

“Of course it is! That’s not even love. Johnny’s disillusioned,” Taeyong spits out. “‘Cause she asked him out first and he just agreed since he’s _nice_. And everyone in our grade’s starting to date so he’s bumbling around acting like it’s suddenly his business to find himself whatever girl’s able to tolerate his foul-smelling duffel bag for more than one minute, to keep walking around the hallways with her under his arm, and bringing her to sport games that she’s obviously not interested in, and for some godforsaken reason it’s her business to find herself some numb-brained loser over six feet who can’t see past his own _fucking_ bangs. There’s nothing close to the mere semblance of love. But, you know, one day he’s gonna realize how wrong he is, and he'll recognize what’s close to him, and I’ll forgive him.”

“ _What in the goddamn hell are you talking about?”_

“You’re too young.” Taeyong dismisses him with a wave of his hand. “Love’s far too complex for you. You can’t even do algebra yet.”

“I _so_ can do algebra. You’re catty and mean lately, must be ‘cause you’re turning old. May your receding hairline forever progress.” Ten throws his pencil at him after his curse: it lands squarely on his forehead and a flock of blackbirds perched on the tree behind him chaotically disperse at Taeyong’s rather ungraceful _SHIT!_

“You’re a menace.”

“And your crush on Johnny is weird.” Ten picks at a loose thread from the knees of his ripped jeans. He says so, but there’s something about the way Taeyong speaks about Johnny that has him feeling a bit weird, maybe weirder than the crush itself.

Not exactly weird.

Envious.

“... What’s so complex about it that you think I can’t understand it?” Ten asks after a weighted pause.

“About what?” Taeyong’s doing this on purpose, Ten knows that much.

“... Love.”

“Hm.” Taeyong picks the pencil up from the ground and starts fiddling with it. He pokes the graphite with his finger and then rolls his pointer and thumb down the shaved wood until he reaches the intact part of the pencil. Then, he goes back to the top, and repeats. “It’s a mix of selflessness with selfishness that only makes sense in that context.”

“Huh?”

“You want to care for that person; you want to be completely and utterly selfless. You want to offer them the world. But such a thing like that only happens if you have a gain from it - y’know, that gain, it’s not even material… usually it’s just because it makes you happy. Because you want to. Because you want it. That’s selfish. But when you really love them, you don’t even expect to be loved back - isn’t that the gain you’d expect someone to be searching for? Where does selfishness come from? Selflessness? It’s a contradiction.” Taeyong taps the pencil against his temple. “So big of a contradiction you won’t be able to get it yet.”

“You’re fifteen,” Ten says with a furrow in his eyebrows.

“... Yes.”

“But you sound like some married woman in a TV show.”

Taeyong throws the pencil at Ten: it lands squarely on his forehead with a pronounced _TINK!_

The conversation dies away after the assault. Taeyong goes back to reading his dumb book about love, devotion, and other sickly affairs, and Ten picks at his ripped jeans a little more.

A sudden coldness comes over him. More bone-chilling than the most humid winter day - a Siberian gale that starts from his heart and is pumped through his veins, freezing him. His fingers tingle before they go numb and his jaw feels paralyzed, unable to call out to Taeyong. Something is wrong.

His eyes, the only part of him still able to move, look to the ground.

A fresh layer of frost covers the grass. Two footsteps, smaller than his own, stand beside him.

Ten doesn’t know if he’s scared.

The feet turn around. They leave fresh footsteps behind them and a new trail of frost before them. A quick glance tells that Taeyong isn’t paying attention at all. The footsteps walk towards the porch, marking the first step with a _creak_ that makes Ten’s heart sink deeper into the unknown, and stop.

His chest decompresses the way you’d think getting ejected out of the emergency exit of a plane feels like: his breath rushes in and leaves him gasping for air. Is this fear? Is this just the cold? His chest decompresses again, and this time his frigid lips find the will to move.

“Hello?”

A flash of light blinks over the porch. It’s gone as soon as Ten registers it.

Warmth floods back into him. His fingers become flushed. His ears stop ringing. The world starts to make sense a little more. He is on his lawn chair in front of his house with Taeyong. It’s Saturday afternoon. He has an English quiz Tuesday that he hasn’t studied for. His mother is gone, shopping for a new rice cooker. The leaves of the trees near his house were red three days ago, but now they’re yellow. His science homework is staring back at him from his lap. The grass is the tinge of green you’d expect from fall.

There is a shiny bracelet on the porch.

 _For you_ , he swears he hears.

A strange, familiar feeling washes over Ten.

The cupboard under the stairs is dark, as always. If Ten’s plans on overtaking Johnny height-wise succeed, then it’ll be more and more difficult to try and squeeze himself into the small door frame as the months come by. He lights a candle, a small, round one seldom taller than his thumb, and places it next to him. It’ll only be lit for this tiny slice of time: this tiny moment that Ten’s so desperate in initiating into eternity.

The offering box is now full - when he took it out, there were only a few candies taken from it. Their empty spaces are now filled with double the content.

He adds the pencil from earlier in it. It feels important, somehow.

Before closing the lid, he takes a moment to contemplate his little box. He’s missed this. He’s missed this terribly. Why so? Why does he do it?

What’s the gain?

Ten straightens the pencil atop of the packages of shortbreads and finds himself hoping that he will find the box empty tomorrow, or at least, before Tuesday so that he has something to think about before his quiz.

That’s it. Just that.

The chain bracelet, a bit large for him, slides down his wrist as he brings the candle to his lips, and blows.

o.0.o

Halloween night. Fifteen years old. An encounter.

Spy Kids came out when Ten was thirteen. He originally planned to see it with Kun, but Johnny forced himself into the outing because Mark was so desperate to tag along. It was a great movie, frankly a masterpiece. Unfortunately, Mark became obsessed with spies and broke his arm a month later while climbing atop the fences. Ten drew a big heart and his favourite superheroes on his cast.

At that time, he and Kun thought Carmen and Juni were stupid for not realizing their parents were spies. The evidence was all there - if they had a brain, they’d ask the other kids around if they had any intensive spy-jungle-gym training and figure out the conclusion for themselves. Their house was far too cool for regular parents to own. _Idiots_ , Ten said. _Their parents took them for fools and they were fools._

 _But if their parents raised them as fools, how could they know?_ Kun said. They were at the CD shop at the mall and Kun was tapping against a plastic case. It was a very arid noise. _They took them for fools because they always were fools._

Ten scoffed.

Two weeks later, Ten’s mother had him sit at the dining table on a gloomy morning to tell him that she works as an exorcist.

Everything about Spy Kids suddenly became clear.

He was Carmen and Juni: he was the fool.

The business ran in the family - the child who was most attuned to the spiritual took the reins. Attuneness, if that is a word, was a range, Ten discovered. His great-grandmother could see ghosts. His grandmother and mother cannot, and his mother cannot hear them unless through ritual.

Ten was reportedly a peculiar child from birth, although Kun could tell you as much without knowing anything about ghosts. The move to the graveyard was calculated. This gloominess was forced unto him. Ten was to be the next in line.

She didn’t talk about the work itself. Ten looked at the books she laid out onto the table amongst the one he already knew about and picked the one that seemed the most appropriate.

He doesn’t want to think about what he read, even two years later.

Ten’s a fool, but remains a crafty one. He’s a liar when he wants to be one, and Taeyong could tell you as much based wholly on his own suffering.

His eyes were blind; his ears were deaf; he was a warm body, never cold; he was unbothered by the rows of the dead. The world couldn’t reach him. His mother wouldn’t be close to it. Nodding to everything his mother said, Ten couldn’t help but question why he wasn’t scared of lying.

Two years later, Ten’s mother has dropped most of her questions and endeavours to teach him any of the ropes, except for that time Ten asked about tax declarations. He will never recall anything that was said, but he sure wishes he did. His exchanges with his ghost have returned to the same regularity as when they first started, and he keeps everything in his locker.

Fifteen isn’t exactly the age of freedom he was led to believe: for starters, he hasn’t grown anywhere near close to Johnny. By the tiniest, smallest, most minimal and practically negligible margin, he stands as the shortest amongst his friends. He still has time to grow, but he’s already hit his growth spurt. It’s abysmal. His wrists have, however, filled out and his bracelet doesn’t move as much, now resting comfortably a little under his wrist and never leaving its spot.

However, yesterday, he finally dyed his hair red. When he arrived at school this morning, everyone thought it was an extremely appropriate Halloween colour, although Taeyong kept rolling his eyes. He kept on saying it clashed with Ten’s style: Ten’s pretty sure it was because Taeyong was asked to dye back to black for his senior picture. His mothers then got concerned about the number of times he was going through the entire visible spectrum of light, and was promptly placed under a ban.

As fun as the attention was, his friends kept on asking if it was going to be part of his Halloween costume, and Ten realized that he was so swept up in the prospect of dyeing his hair all month that he forgot about the theatrics of today.

This is why Ten has an old, faded, flower-printed flat sheet draped over his head with crude holes cut out for his eyes.

“Be back before 9,” Ten’s mother calls out from the top of the stairs. He waves a hand at her between tying his boots. “Call me if anything happens, or have Kun call me.”

“Don’t worry, I will.” He ties a bow with the orange ribbons he laced on his black leather boots. Rather a good look, he’d say. The flat sheet accommodates a viewing space for his fashion statement, floating a handful of centimetres above his ankles. “Be nice to the kids.” Ten adds. It’s more to tease her - she likes the entire trick-or-treating aspect of the day. He slings his messenger bag over his shoulder and opens the door.

“Ten.”

“Yes?”

“... Don’t go wandering in the graveyard tonight.”

The light at the top of the stairs is the only one lit. The entire ground floor is dark, save for the candles and the jack-o-lantern they carved together. His mother stands there, like the only illuminated person in the world. Her long black hair frames the strange sort of worry on her face, and her witch’s dress, equally as black, punches her silhouette out against the off-white walls. Ten has caught up to her height, maybe even surpasses her by a centimetre or two, but she looks bigger than life standing like that.

He grips the door handle a little tighter.

“... I won’t,” He finally says.

She smiles.

Ten smiles back.

The air outside is crisp and fresh. Fog clings onto every breath he takes and the fallen leaves look especially crunchy. The thin smattering of snow they had on Monday has all melted away, and they need not be reminded of winter during the most autumnal celebration they have. He reaches into his bag for his flip phone, grabbing it by the numerous charms that hang off it.

_New text!_

_KUN: gna b a lil late :(_

Ten scoffs. If it’s because Dejun threw up again, he’s not having it. That kid has some issues to sort out, especially with his timing. He needs Kun tonight, more than anyone else: his political ambitions match that of Ten’s, and freely marketing oneself for student council at Jackson’s Halloween Party is embarrassing to do on your own.

He keeps walking down the narrow sidewalk as he dials Kun’s number.

“ _Hey_ ,” Kun picks up fairly quickly. “ _Expect a 30-minute delay._ ”

“Did Dejun catch something at school?”

“ _No, it’s Kris._ ” Ten kicks a rock and watches it land inside the manhole on his right. “ _Something came up, so he can’t drive me yet_.”

“Your brothers are so troublesome. What’s so monumentally important, huh? What am I supposed to do? Wait outside like some lame loser?”

“ _Go play with your Tamagotchis, I don’t know_.”

Typical of Kun. Insensitive about the small things. “Need I remind you that Louis _DIED_ in math class? And I can’t even open Leon anymore! My children have been taken away from me!”

“ _How was I supposed to know? I was paying attention. Shove a pipe cleaner behind Leon, Kris did that with Dejun’s._ ”

“This is stupid,” Ten clicks his tongue against his teeth the way his mother does. “I only have 100 minutes. I’m hanging up.”

“ _I’ll text you when we leave. See you later!_ ”

“Smell ya later.” He shuts his phone with a pronounced snap. How dreary. Ten looks up from his phone, only to find himself standing in front of the graveyard’s main entrance.

His mother’s words play back in his head. He bites his lips.

Ten has always been a liar.

He pushes the tall gates open, and steps in.

The grass is a little damp. Everything’s always damp in this graveyard. People always associate gloominess with shades of grey, but they really should be thinking about the overall wetness of gloom. The soles of his boots occasionally squeak as he wanders about, guided by the flashlight he always keeps in his bag. It’s handy to have; the streets in his neighbourhood aren’t well lit and it’s a safety hazard, but Ten doesn’t know how to tell the mayor that. He imagines that he can’t write a letter addressed to “City Hall, Mayor’s office” and expect it to land on that lady’s desk first thing in the morning.

The graveyard is a little busier than usual today. He is slightly embarrassed about walking around in a graveyard in his crude ghost costume, but that’s just how it came to be. There’s lots of chatter, although the sound isn’t too loud. Ten can barely make out any words. The whispers float above the ground like mist, never close by, but surrounding him. He used to worry about going crazy while hearing them when he was younger, but it’s all become ambient noise to him.

He won’t deny that it does make the hairs on his arm raise a little, it does make him wary, watchful of who might be behind him; but the words aren’t meant for him, why should he listen?

The back of the graveyard is relatively quiet. The graves are old, and Ten assumes their spirits have dearly departed. It’s peaceful. The moon is bright tonight, currently untouched by the clouds surrounding her.

He lets a breath out he didn’t know he was holding in.

It’s difficult, this dynamic between him and his mother. Maybe it’s because Ten is innocent in these matters: exorcisms deal with possession, with evilness, with cruelness, and Ten has witnessed none. She told him not to be afraid all those years ago because she was there with him, but even without her Ten isn’t so scared. Ghosts are inherently cruel, in her eyes. She still looks at Ten with so much worry, and it makes his heart heavy.

Ten still wants to think that the way he understands the world is the right way.

He hobbles down a few concrete steps. The button pins in his bag rattle on the way down. He hopes tonight will secure him a few votes. Frankly, he’s not entirely sure why he wants to be on the council so bad, but Kun said he was going to and it looked interesting. Ten’s nosy, anyways, and at the time it seemed like a quality needed for being in the student council.

The wind suddenly picks up. It whistles between the trees and the graves, or at least, Ten thinks that’s where the whistle comes from. The branches of the tree above him rustle and shake, dark arms and fingers crowding the night sky. His costume feels restrictive, claustrophobic, like he can’t properly see the world around him - he slips the sheet off and grips it in his spare hand. He shivers.

“Hello?” Ten calls out, voice slightly trembling, but firm.

There is a flash of light in the corner of his eye. The cold wind whips across his face when he turns around abruptly, almost losing his balance. Another flash of light. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.

His flashlight flickers, and shuts.

Total darkness falls upon him when the clouds obscure the moon.

This must be what the end of the world looks like, Ten thinks absentmindedly. Anyone who has lived to the end of the world must have thought such a boring thought.

The bitter wind creeps around him, as if circling him - he can hear it whoosh around him and feel it on the tip of his nose and his cheeks. It creeps and creeps and creeps, blowing into his ears, and Ten’s the coldest he ever has been, his body unable to even meekly protest.

It feels like ice is building up in his heart, in his stomach, striking through his body like lightning; his body starts to shake as if he’s about to cry, and-

Something frigid wraps around his arm.

Ten screams like he never has before. In some unexpected burst of energy, probably gifted by adrenaline and caveman instincts, Ten throws everything in front of him, freeing himself from its hold.

The wind stops.

In the sudden quietness that falls around him, Ten’s heart is beating inhumanely quickly. He tries breathing in - he tries five times until it works. The world is still dark.

There’s a pronounced beat in time, so strange that Ten feels it; like he knows he’s waiting for something to happen, this next thing happening in the next second, and he must stop everything to pay attention to it. Everything else in the world stops, too. Like everyone’s taking a breath. He could hear a pin drop.

The clouds above the graveyard, touching the heavens, move. Moonlight is cast on the graves, caught in reflections of polished granite - a pure white light reaching far beyond awe-inspiring. The graveyard is quiet, contemplative. The grass is this most beautiful shade of blue-green: the blueness of the world surrounding him is beautiful. If you ever imagined dipping your hand into the milky way and picking up the stardust, the light, the pinks and yellows, the reds, the purples, the blues and oranges and yellows between your fingers, feeling the entire galaxy flow around your hand like the purest form of water, then this is the same feeling Ten has when he raises his hands to the sight before him.

The old, faded, flower-print bedsheet covers something the same height as Ten. It gently floats above the ground: the bottom ripples with the gentle breeze that slowly fills the graveyard.

He doesn’t think and cups his hands around the soft sheet where a head should be, not applying any pressure, just touching. Feeling. Trying.

Ten isn’t scared.

This most strange sense of familiarity is muffling his nerves into an awe-stricken state.

“... Hello,” Ten says.

His heart pounds steadily, marking each second with a _thrum_ throughout his whole body.

Then it happens. Soft, small, quiet, and barely there:

_Hello._

“You… it’s you?” This is amazing. This shouldn’t even be real, or legal, since almost all good things are illegal. His hands tremble with nervousness, he doesn’t know what kind. “R-right?”

The sheet-ghost tilts its head. With the sheet, it’s material enough that Ten’s hands follow it. A question.

“Mine?” Ten clarifies.

A nod.

“Wow. That’s- I mean. I don’t know. It’s…” It’s been six years, Ten wants to say. He doesn’t say it: he doesn’t know why’d he say it. Why he feels a little sad and confused. They’ve been dancing around each other for six years until today, he wants to say, but he doesn’t feel like he can.

“What’s your name?” Ten finally decides to ask. He steps a little closer to his ghost, still cradling it.

He hears something, but it’s so quiet and muffled, similar to when he hears the voices from the graveyard. He can’t even make out a word. It’s upsetting, almost.

“I’m sorry. I’m not good enough to hear, yet,” Ten says. He lets go of the ghost, hands stupidly waiting at his sides like they forgot how to act normally. “Do you know how to write?”

The ghost shakes its head.

Ten looks up, screwing his eyes shut with a frown. The universe is mocking him.

Trying to come up with small talk for a ghost who can’t speak back is the most ridiculous situation he has ever been in. This includes the times he had to watch Mark try to talk to his crush, Donghyuck, not to confess, but to tell him to knock off the jokes. Every time he ends up as the main subject of mockery and inexplicably comes back lovesick. Nervous, he hops from foot to foot, trying to think of simple _yes-no_ questions that don’t sound stupid.

His messenger bag rattles.

Oh?

“Hey, hey, c’mon. I have a gift for you.” Ten’s still the one to close the space between them. He fishes out one of the button pins from his bag: it’s almost the size of his palm and a shade of sky blue he took ages to pick out. “Look!”

The ghost looks down at it. The eye holes are useful for figuring out where the ghost is looking, even if there’s nothing behind them but the back of the sheet. “You don’t go to my school, but you see, I’m running for student council. I wanna be one of the public faces. See, I’m gonna be the one talking to everyone and looking handsome. I made these all on my own with my friend in the art room, aren’t they lovely?”

Ten smiles widely when he sees the ghost nod enthusiastically, the sheet shifting on its head with its vigour.

“ _Vote for Ten,_ ” He reads off the button. “ _It’s a win-win situation!_ Win-win is a good word,” He begins to explain. “It means that everyone gets to win. It’s a prosperous word.” If the ghost doesn’t know how to write while being the same size as Ten, he can’t imagine it knowing that much about the present world.

“Don’t move.” Ten says. He gently grasps the front of the sheets to gingerly pin his button into place. “There you go.”

The ghost looks down at its chest, and then back up to Ten.

“Lovely,” Ten comments.

This is the most absurd situation Ten has ever been in, and he so wishes that someone would tell him if he’s navigating it correctly.

The small silence they share is cut off by Ten’s text tone. He gives a quick apology before digging his phone out his bag.

_New text!_

_KUN: omw. picking u up at th parking >.<_

“I…” Ten frowns, his heart a little stifled. “I have to go.”

He watches the flower-print head look back down.

“I’m really sorry,” Ten says as he looks down to his own feet. This strange feeling in his chest must be why the ghost is looking down, too. Neither of them seem to know what to do with it, though, so they burden the ground with it.

He has an idea. “Poke your hand up. From the sheet.” His heartbeat starts to pick up. “So I can see it.”

The sheet moves around until it moulds around a slim hand. The fabric’s so soft and thin that it falls across every joint and form almost perfectly. Ten quickly glances down to the bottom of the sheet, where no feet are to be found: this really is absurd.

With this hand, this right hand of his, Ten holds that of a ghost. It’s a little cold. He wraps his hand around the flower-printed fingers and gently strokes them.

“Come find me soon,” Ten says.

The ghost nods.

“Promise me.”

The ghost nods, twice.

Ten punches out his last words reluctantly, “I’m going, now. Goodbye.”

A strong gust of wind overtakes their area of the graveyard: the trees and bushes loudly rustle and leaves are thrown up into the air: the cold air fills Ten’s lungs to remind him that he’s so very alive.

The sheet falls to the ground.

His flashlight turns back on again.

Ten stands there for a good minute or two, among the gravestones, among the moonlight, between each blade of swaying grass and every leaf floating back down to the ground.

How strange, and how peculiar he must be.

o.0.o

November 13. Fifteen years old. Winwin.

Ten has his galoshes on. Well, he doesn’t really go around calling his rain boots galoshes, but Johnny keeps saying it lately and it just stuck. The first few minutes walking around in galoshes is always uncomfortable, like with ice skates, but then the rubber finds its home and Ten can _schlip_ and _schlop_ his way through the steady falling rain. It’s a little windy and his umbrella is already broken, so he’s relying on his raincoat to keep him dry and warm. He’s swapped his regular messenger back for a waterproof one, too.

November isn’t as fun as October. The leaves have almost all fallen and they simply lie on the ground, waiting to be taken or buried by snow. The sound of wet leaves under your feet isn’t entirely pleasant either. On this path of the graveyard, a thin layer of mud has formed atop the few leaves scattered across the surface; they slumber under it like new-age fossils, and Ten can’t help but wonder what will become of them.

The rain pelts down on his hood. It’s noisy. He’s also lost a solid chunk of his peripheral vision, but gone are the days of predators: he’s relatively safe.

Ten’s always surprised by the number of people who decorate graves for festive seasons. Sometimes they don’t come back to clean up their Christmas decorations however, so wreaths and Santas are left behind as the seasons change to summer and back to winter. With the passage of Halloween there are currently some pumpkins rotting by a few graves, some carved, some left whole, and some already half-assedly eaten by squirrels. Do the graveyard workers have to clean that up, or just leave them there?

Perhaps like all things, they’re just left to decay. Like these sloppy, wet leaves.

Ten jumps over a muddy puddle and lands in some gravel. He’s out looking for his ghost today. They haven’t met since Halloween, and it worries him in some way. It’s different than regular worry and he’s not entirely sure how to define it.

It’s just that their timings are off, probably. Ten can’t reach out on his own, so it falls on his little ghost to figure things out: it doesn’t seem very good at it. But Ten knows it’s trying. He finds nickels on his windowsill whenever he comes back home from school, from a friend’s house, or from shopping with his mother. It would appear that the ghost doesn’t understand the concept of school and keeps checking in at the wrong times.

Where his ghost gets its nickels is a whole other concern that Ten chooses not to address.

He stops at where they were last time, at the back of the graveyard. The rain hasn’t let up yet. Everything’s so dreary looking, and the old dirt path curves inward towards the middle like a ditch, gathering up a fine layer of soggy leaves. He sniffles.

“Hello?” Ten calls out. He can only just hear himself over the rain resounding on his hood. “I’m here!”

If only Ten knew a name.

His hands are almost bone white. You always forget how cold rain makes everything until fall rolls in. November’s such a gloomy, grey month. A shiver runs through his body, and he brings his hands up to blow some hot air in them.

Another shiver shoots up from his feet to the top of his head. His teeth rattle.

Ten furrows his eyebrows.

A cold wind blows on his right side, strong enough that he turns to his left as if he has to comply. He presses his hands to his lips, facing the center of a dirt path.

A light flashes before him.

At the intersection, a few rows of graves down, leaves are being kicked up. It continues, quickly getting closer to him. Ten shifts his feet on the ground and drops his weight lower, the way Johnny does before Mark or Donghyuck try to tackle him - it just makes sense. It’s getting closer.

Something glacial slams into him. Ten’s pushed backwards by the force and falls on his back: he makes the most wretched noise born from his mouth and groans at the cold water against his stinging back.

He slowly props himself up on his elbows. Waterproof wear is very important to have in November.

“Hello,” Ten breathes out, still under the shock of the fall. “It’s me.”

_Hello._

Ten smiles. It hurts his cold cheeks, but he smiles.

“Ah, I should’ve brought the sheet again. I can’t see you.” He waves a hand in front of him. His already cold fingers turn frigid, like he just dipped them into a frozen lake. “ _Ow!_ My bad, that must’ve gone right through you. I hope it didn’t hurt.”

He hears the same, distant, muddled speech like before. It’s as if he’s underwater, and it tramples on his happiness a little.

“I was waiting for you,” Ten confesses.

It’s easy to speak when you can’t expect a response.

He picks his smile back up. “Now, let’s fix this situation.”

Ten gets up from the ground and unzips his raincoat; he shivers properly when the rain starts to hit his sweater, and he just might regret this. How’s he going to explain this to his mother? Still, he holds it open by the shoulder stitches, and slowly, the coat starts to take a shape. Ten stifles a giggle and reaches to put up the hood, a surprisingly easy operation.

Ten stands before his own floating, yellow raincoat.

It’s a strange sight that he doesn’t think he’ll ever get over. It feels wrong on the basis of the laws of everything he knows, but it makes his heart warm.

The rain starts to let up. The clouds must be moving.

“Come on. I’m getting soaked.” Ten pulls his sleeves over his hands and walks towards a patch of hedge-trees that stand by a large family grave. The yellow coat follows him.

Curled under the coverage of the short trees, Ten’s a little more dry and a little less cold. While he’s grateful, it kind of sucks to plant a tree close to a grave. When it grows the roots start settling in, and they disrupt the other tombstones. When the branches start to spread and the leaves grow, they cover up the grave’s neighbours. It’s a little rude.

“There should be gazebos in graveyards,” Ten remarks. His ghost looks up at him, the hood facing him. Ten can’t help but grin at the sight. “Do you even know what those are?”

His ghost shakes its head. “Yeah, I didn’t think so. You’re lucky, though.” Ten digs into his bag, still slung over his shoulder after giving his coat away. He takes a sketchpad and a pencil out. “Because I brought this!”

His ghost sits up straight. It’s cute. It’s strange, this whole situation, but Ten doesn’t feel alone in the conversation. Something's just natural about it.

He starts drawing on the first blank page he finds: a few raindrops make their way through the trees to stain the paper, but it’s not so bad.

“This is a gazebo.” Ten points to the structure. “You’re inside, but also outside. It’s good for when it rains. And sometimes there’s benches in it for sitting. There should be more gazebos everywhere.”

His ghost nods.

“Can you hold a pencil?” Ten asks. He holds it out, making sure that his grip is ultra-light. If it can, then they finally have a shot at communicating. Ten doesn’t know all the rules that apply to ghosts, doesn’t know anything about them - avoiding confrontation to his mother’s job entails not knowing these things - but this would be the biggest blessing in the world. “You can take it,” he encourages.

A yellow sleeve comes up near the pencil. He feels a little pressure on the opposite end. It’s like an extremely serious game of operation: his eyes are trained on the nothing holding the pencil, and slowly, slowly, he lets go.

The pencil falls to the ground.

“ _Shit!_ ” Ten sounds more upset than he intended. “Shit, I’m sorry. Maybe I’m pressuring you too much. It must be hard to be a ghost around humans.”

He picks the pencil back up as his ghost makes a little nod.

“Well, at least I can show you things you don’t know about, or I guess, y’know. Draw you some answer options. Like a quiz - probably your first quiz ever. It’s too bad that I can’t ask for things like your name.” He looks at his ghost and the little tilt of its head. It looks back up at him, like there’s an intent to it. “What?”

His ghost moves. A sleeve reaches down to the damp ground. The trace of a finger appears in the mud. Ten doesn’t say, do anything, just watches it move around.

The sleeve arrives at his sketchpad. Ten looks down at the paper. Slowly, letters start to appear.

_W-I-N-W-I-N_

“Huh. Did you learn that?”

His ghost nods.

“All by yourself?”

Ten’s surprised that his ghost kept the pin he left behind when he bundled up his sheet costume before leaving the graveyard. He can’t believe this ghost has been practicing letters in its own time - that doesn’t even sound like a real situation.

“... But that’s not a name,” Ten says. He carefully traces the letters, thoughtful, and turns to his ghost. “Who are you?”

It must be a weird question to receive when you’re a ghost. If Ten was a ghost for years and years, he wouldn’t really say that he’s Ten anymore - he’d be a new ghost built from new experiences. To have left everything you knew, inevitably you have left behind everything that was you. He’s not really surprised when his ghost shrugs.

“Don’t know, huh? I see. Then I guess you can be Winwin.” Ten hums while he thinks about it as a name. It’s a fine name, like something you’d give to a cat, or a small animal. “Winwinnie, that’s very cute of you. You have such lovely handwriting, too. You should learn to write - with all these graves, you’re not short of practice when it comes to tracing letters. You’re all set.”

Winwin draws a smiley face. Ten suddenly feels very warm, unusual for when you’re sitting next to a ghost, but realizes that it’s because the rain has stopped. Far above them, above the tallest stone cross of the graveyard and the small church’s lofty roof, above the migrating birds and the airplanes, the dark blue clouds move apart just enough to allow the yellow sun to pierce through the gloominess. God rays, Ten would say.

Ten scribbles down a few words. “So… are you a boy ghost? A girl ghost? Another type of ghost?” He says, pointing at every ghost type. He wonders if it’s bad to call a ghost a ghost, but Winwin nonchalantly circles _boy_. Ten draws a flower next to it while Winwin’s busy with another corner of the paper. He’s slowly building up Winwin’s profile.

“How old are you, Winwinnie?” Ten asks. He’s in the middle of drawing a cat next to the cute little cat head Winwin just finished. Winwin shrugs. Perhaps he’s been dead for a long, long while. “I mean, the way you look, how old are you?”

Winwin shrugs again. He starts drawing a fried egg that’s making a little surprised face in the yolk. Ten adds some stripes of bacon and toast next to it. “Well, I’m fifteen. Are you younger than that?”

Ten’s moved on to drawing a toaster. Winwin puts a bunch of question marks around it. It’s comforting to know that even if you don’t know how to write, the question mark and the exclamation point remain known to everyone. Maybe he knows how to write, just not his words. “You put bread inside and it crisps it all up with the heat. Cooks it.” He explains.

Winwin seems to consider this for a while, as he doesn’t draw anything and the raincoat sleeves don’t move. He looks at Ten, and then nods.

“What? Oh, your age! Then… are you ten?” There’s a long pause. Winwin draws a frowny face with a thinking bubble, and Ten takes it as his cue to wait.

Winwin finally shakes his head. “Eight?” He doesn’t have to wait for Winwin to think as he immediately shakes his head again. “So… more than ten? Thirteen?”

There’s another long pause. The clouds shift again and deliver more sunlight, and it seeps through the branches above them. Ten wishes there was a face he could see through the dappled light.

Winwin draws a smiley face. “Sounds about right,” Ten says.

He hears a soft laugh. Maybe a giggle. It’s hard to classify, but it’s quiet and a little squeaky, and Ten’s certain that he’ll be stuck thinking about it for a good while.

They draw some more. Pages slowly get filled out; Ten tells Winwin a few stories, the concept of school among them, and gets some encouraging nods in return. The more time he passes with Winwin, the more he gets to hear his laughter, like he’s getting used to it. He can’t help but frown a little as he tries to think - when he was younger, when Winwin was the one in his house, his giggles sounded so… childish. Not the way it was today. His footsteps were small and light, while now they’re just… bigger. He stands at the same height as Ten, but doesn’t know how to read or write.

Winwin draws some candy wrappers and a few jam cookies with big, round centres. _You have to grow big and strong so that you can make friends quickly._

Ten looks at his ghost beside him, invisible but wearing his coat, cold but warm, unable to hold a pencil but capable of drawing an entire procession of cats, some wearing hats.

They’re friends. He thinks of that again: they’re friends.

Ten grins and adds some socks on Winwin’s cats.

It’s starting to get late. His mother needs help with cooking supper. It gets dark earlier in November and it always catches him by surprise, as if time isn’t supposed to pass and as if the seasons aren’t supposed to exist so differently. They make another promise to see each other, and now that Winwin knows what school is, the promise should be kept.

“Goodbye!” Ten says.

_Goodbye!_

The raincoat falls back to the ground. Ten’s left to gather his things, assess the dampness of his sweater, and shakes the final specks of coldness left clinging onto his bones.

With Winwin gone, the clouds come back to cover the graveyard with gloominess once more. The first few droplets of rain come back and Ten quickly puts his coat back on, the fabric cold against him. A ghost wore this a few minutes ago. He drags his feet across the dirt path, clutching the wide strap of his bag.

He hears unfamiliar footsteps. Something whistles, and it’s not the wind. Ten shivers, and this kind of shiver, this feeling that makes his stomach lurch, is unfamiliar. Winwin is gone, Ten remembers.

He swears he feels something tug on his bracelet.

He runs back home. With every step he takes, the thoughts seep out of his brain and pour out from his ears until he’s only left with good memories.

He wants to see Winwin again. He wants to make sure Winwin is his ghost.

Ten kneels in the darkness of the cupboard under the stairs.

He bought a bracelet last Sunday when he was out shopping with Kun. Kun thought it was really pretty and looked at him with such deep, suspicious eyes when Ten said it wasn’t for himself. He kicked his bum for that. Kun kicked his bum for that, too. If they weren’t in a store, it would’ve probably escalated, but the public eye kept them in order.

He opens the lid of the box, and slips it in.

o.0.o

March 7. Sixteen years old. The warning.

A pencil sharpener, a bluebird brooch, a toy mouse, a dead mouse (Ten safely disposed of the mouse);

A muddy Valentine’s card addressed to some child named Lucas, a small case of cinnamon hearts, a shiny pebble;

A few plastic flowers that lost their bouquet, a golden twist-tie, and a collection of oddly coloured soda tabs:

Ten keeps offering his gifts to Winwin, and Winwin keeps giving back. It’s something to do for the days where they don’t meet, and they meet often.

Winwin’s speech starts making more and more sense. He starts talking a lot more because of that, and Ten’s used to his voice now. Only a few words of every few sentences are clear, but Ten’s in no position to complain. He doesn’t really talk about himself, but he’s prone to asking a lot of questions, a curious little soul. Ten’s been trying to teach him how to write, and Winwin can print out a fine alphabet by now.

It’s easy to be with Winwin, even if they can’t talk properly with each other. He feels warm when he’s with him. There’s no pretense, no airs to put on, and he becomes a much softer person with him. Ten will twirl his pencil at the back of the classroom thinking of his Windex spritz-bottle giggles and it just feels like the right thing to be doing.

By consequence, the voices in the graveyard become more and more unnerving. What used to be filler noise intensifies. There isn’t any right word to describe it, but sometimes Ten will stand in front of the gates, and the noise becomes unbearable. It’s like a switch has been flipped.

It isn’t a strong deterrent, however.

Ten has been to Winwin’s grave. If you go to a graveyard you might as well visit a grave. In the section where they first met, a plot filled with short little graves stands. Every grave is adorned with a stone lamb.

Children’s graves.

Winwin’s is somewhere in the middle. The stone is old and washed out - Ten doesn’t know much about stone, but he can say that they all work differently from each other. Some graves from the late 1800s are still crisp and the words are clean, and some are almost wholly smooth; he’s come across a grave from ten years ago completely run over by moss, some falling apart, and some still as new as the day they were made. Winwin’s name is nowhere to be found, nor his birth date, nor his death date. They tried, or well, Ten’s attempts meant more since he knows how to read, to trace the fading imprints of the carvings, but there were no concrete letters to be found.

They only went there once. There was something about seeing those small lambs and young ages, those tiny headstones that drag down on his heart, that didn’t settle well with him.

Like with everything bad in the world, Ten chooses to forget, and move on.

It’s a cold day, today. Ten woke up to a greyness, and he still traverses that same greyness this afternoon. He plugs in the Christmas lights hanging above his keyboard to at least forcefully drag some colour into his bedroom.

Ten pops out one of Taeyong’s burnt CDs from its pink tinted box. He’s been really into making his own mixes and Taeyong actually has good taste - it’s not enough to have Johnny notice him though. Johnny must be stupendously stupid, or deceivingly heterosexual. At least Taeyong has him.

He’s been working on a choreography for one of the songs - it’s upbeat and, daresay, a little sexy. He starts warming up on his blue rug, the round, fluffy thing in the middle of his room that serves to muffle the sound of his feet. It’s a bit difficult today, seeing as it’s so cold outside: Ten refuses to wear socks in the house and has been left with cold feet and cold hands. He’s had to warm up for a little too long to the Backstreet Boys, but that’s not a complaint, he wants to point out, it’s just a remark.

Ten’s in the middle of figuring out how to get his leg to twist right without seeing himself in a mirror when his eyes are drawn to a flash of light by the window. Breaking out into a smile, he rushes over to the windowsill. While March should be a warm month, the snowstorms and foot of snow from February remain. He leans in a little too close and bumps his nose against the window. Feeling anything on the tip of your nose is just too strange and disturbing to think about.

His breath clouds against the glass as he looks outside. He wipes it away with his sleeve, and on the last pass, a strong shiver runs through his elbow to the tips of his fingers.

Despite it, warmth flutters in Ten’s stomach.

Frost starts forming on the window. The perfect crystalline structure creeps onto the glass perfectly, all angles and no curves, just as delightful as well-formed snowflakes posing themselves on winter mittens. It stretches out like a web, and in the center, ice appears in the form of a handprint.

No matter what, Ten always knows when it’s Winwin - and by coincidence, his only visitor is Winwin. Maybe Winwin keeps everyone else away. He doesn’t know if Winwin is strong like that. He doesn’t know how strong Winwin has to be.

He smiles those thoughts away.

Ten places his hand opposite of Winwin’s. It’s freezing, but it’s okay. That’s what he tells himself, no matter how weak his arm feels. When he briskly walks out of the graveyard with his legs feeling like jelly, escaping the foreign voices that slither on the dirt paths and follow the shape of every pebble in the gravel to catch up to him, he tells himself it's okay. When Winwin talks for a little too long and his head pounds, the ghost’s words, either garbled or clear, weave through his ears and resound in his body like concert music, it’s okay - it’s not Winwin’s fault.

It’s not his fault, because the frost changes on the window as Winwin flexes his hand, and when Ten follows the shape quickly after him, the softest giggle makes its way through the window panes. He can see the bracelet he gave him floating behind the glass.

The door opens.

Ten always forgets to tighten the hinges, and when it’s winter the wood in the house moves with the weather, and it opens with this great big _creak_ where you can hear the wood drag on the top of the door frame. It breaks through _Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)_ and it breaks their moment.

The door opens, and holding the handle is his mother.

Something shatters in Ten’s heart.

Ten pulls away and shuts the curtains. He falls off balance and grips onto the fabric; when he’s standing again, he notices that he’s barely covering the window. The frostprint lays in the open. His heart is ready to leap out of his mouth. He’s shaking. Gone are the door and the Backstreet Boys: the only thing he can hear is this dull but quick throbbing of his heart. Blood pounds into his ears. He’s sick.

Ten’s mother just stands there. Her face doesn’t change. She’s just so plainly standing there in her beige sweater and her hair tied into a low ponytail, looking so ordinary, and her face does nothing to betray it.

Ten holds his breath.

“I’m boiling some water,” she says. “Do you want some? Auntie Zhong came by and gave us some hot chocolate mix and marshmallows.”

Ten does not furrow his brows, although he does so on the inside. He does not choke on his breath, although it feels like he is. His face remains as impassive as his mother’s. Every limb of his body prickles with nerves, set alight, still unsure of what to do with the curtain, with the evidence.

You know, when you believe that your parents’ life revolves around you?

They seem so obsessed with everything that you do, so nosy and always caught up in your business, always trying to figure out what you’re up to. There’s always questions and judgements and quips, there's the watchful eye always staring at you, like the eyes in his mother’s coconut milk fish soup.

But then you grow up, and you realize that sometimes, they choose not to see.

They choose to let go.

It’s the strangest realization, and Ten is thrown off his rhythm.

“...Yes,” he replies, strained.

“I’ll be downstairs, then.” She leans over to push some of Ten’s notebooks leaning on the edge of his desk back to safety. Ten watches her. She doesn’t look at him.

As she shuts the door back again, she stops. Ten’s mother looks at him in the eye.

“Nothing is what it seems,” she says, “it’s more complicated than you think.”

Then she’s gone.

Ten doesn’t understand.

o.0.o

April 2. Sixteen years old. Rapture.

Ten rearranges his scarf around his face. There’s a final cold front hitting the region, and apparently after that, winter will lift itself up into milder temperatures. His snot has frozen the front of his scarf solid and it’s just disgusting.

His feet crunch in the thin layer of snow leftover on the ground. Soon, this will all be gone and Ten can bring his shoes back out.

He quickly weaves between a few rows of graves. This is the more crowded area of the graveyard, with its double rows where graves stand back-to-back. At the front of the plot are the shorter graves guarding buried urns: the tombstones are all bunched together and they reach below his knees. Their plastic flower arrangements have seen better days. Ten hops down the plot and back onto the path.

He ignores the voices behind him.

That is, until a sudden, distinct sound of crying cuts through the silence.

Ten turns around to try and find the source of it. There’s nothing but the endless rows of square-ish graves. The grey sky above him doesn’t offer an answer. The black branches of the trees above him don’t bend down to direct him.

The cries become louder, and they become sadder. They wrap an invisible string around Ten’s heart and start to pull, each wail a tug; he is dragged to the back of the graveyard, burdened with this hollowness in his chest, and he finds himself standing before the old children’s graves.

He recognizes that voice.

Winwin cries the saddest tears ever shed.

Ten will sometimes catch a glimpse of a funeral procession through his window. On sunny days, the black-clad party marches down the paths, following the equally black car. On rainy days, rows of cars follow each other and park in a neat little line. And then the invitees gather around the grave, and then the priest stands there in his white robes. They’re always too far away for him to see if they’re crying. Ten has never been to a funeral, and despite living next to a graveyard, can never guess what it’s like. As he steadily walks through the plot, each step automatic, Ten wonders if this is how funerals feel. His eyes burn with unspoken feelings and his throat swallows around a large stone.

He stares down at the snow-trodden footsteps around Winwin’s grave. Although Ten cannot see him, he’s certainly here.

Winwin’s sobs continue, and Ten’s eyes are glued to the little grave. To the little lamb. That small thing, that small - that little thing that immediately tells you that the hole in your heart is because you’re mourning a child you never knew. The lamb stares back at Ten. It’s overwhelming.

The milk spills over the saucepan. Ten forces himself to look down.

There is this sickness in his heart, this unbearable tightness when for the first time, Ten asks himself:

Do ghosts mourn their own deaths?

Ten opens his mouth between Winwin’s sobs. Nothing comes out. His eyebrows furrow and he tries again. His breath hitches on a hiccup of a sound.

“Winwin,” he finally manages. “Winwi-”

And then, clearly, full of brokeness:

_Go away!_

And then, full of all the heartache in the world, Winwin’s cries start anew.

This must be what the end of the world feels like.

“Win-”

His body takes control and runs at the scream ripping through the graveyard. It takes Ten far, far away, past the graveyard’s gates and through the neighbourhood, past endless, clueless houses, and up the hill where the library is. He doesn’t have the time to think before he’s catching his breath at the top.

When Ten looks down at the view of the graveyard from above, he realizes that his cheeks are wet.

Ten doesn't understand.

He opened a door, and he fell.

o.0.o

April 11. Sixteen years old. Fear.

Kun said during lunch that vampires weren’t scary. He argued that clowns and zombies were the true horrors as they could easily become a real threat - in his opinion, clowns are already threats. Zombies can be born from biochemical warfare. But a vampire? There’s nothing to be scared about, and besides, his mother cooks with enough garlic to ward any fanged delinquent away.

Ten asked him if he actually found vampires attractive. It was meant to be a joke, but Kun seriously started to consider it. _You’re kidding me, right?_ Ten asked. _An old cootie like a vampire who only knows how to talk about trains and the latest knife-gun?_

 _It’s called a bayonet,_ Kun said. _And if immortals were real, some of them would make an effort to keep themselves contemporary._

He also added that Ten knows nothing about romance. Ten protested, far too strongly in his own opinion, surprising himself and Kun.

 _No, I meant that - you’re plenty nice. You’ve got a sharp tongue but a soft heart. You cried for the baby bird we found yesterday- I know, I know, it won’t ever find its mom again, yeah. Alone. But you just don’t know anything about romance or dating. It’s not evil. It’s just that._ _You can’t even fathom loving something non-human!_

Ten frowned at that. And he still frowns at that. He clutches his bracelet and holds it close to his chest while he walks home. What does Kun know about anything? He’s never dated anyone either.

He turns a corner and finds himself walking past the entrance to the graveyard. His feet stop.

He hasn’t seen Winwin since he heard him cry. It felt like he didn’t need Ten. If anything, Ten felt like an aggravation. The last thing he wants is to hurt his ghost friend’s feelings.

Ten moves on.

Kun should take lessons from Kris about romance. Kris has had a ton of dates and partners, including one really weird on-and-off long term thing with some guy from college, Ten never made an effort to remember his name. He looks real nerdy. Ten used to want to be like Kris when he grew up, until Kris just started being this eccentric man that remains a delight, but not someone to emulate. If Kun doesn’t take anything out of Kris’s books, then he can even turn to Dejun. Little brother seems to have some moves. The girls in his theatre class flock around him.

Kun’s stupid and dry and boring and old anyways. Ten shoves his hands into his pockets and properly frowns.

A wind creeps up behind him. It hits his heels and climbs up his back to wrap a hand around his shoulder. He freezes. He walks faster.

Something feels weird, but Ten isn’t sure what. He quickens his steps. The sidewalk cracks zip by faster and faster like a movie reel.

Something is behind him.

Something close.

Something unfamiliar.

Ten searches the ground for a branch or a large rock, maybe even a brick. His eyes skip down the curve and meet the manhole.

Water starts bubbling up from it, as if something’s boiling under it. He’s never seen anything like it before. The water continues to bubble, and then it’s like a dam has burst; it flows and starts to flood above the cover, into the street.

Ten breaks into a sprint.

He’s maybe three minutes away from his house: if he runs this quickly, he has to be halving that time. There are no shortcuts he can take. He can only keep running. His mouth tastes like copper but he can’t stop.

The dark trees on the right side of the sidewalk rustle as he runs past them, and his eyes widen at the sight before him; the wood starts to creak and the branches start to bow down towards him, spindly fingers reaching down as if to corner him, block him, grab him and keep him prisoner: tear him apart.

The whispers from the graveyard grow stronger. Something cold licks at his ankles like fire, and Ten trips on a concrete crack by surprise. He winces at the small branches whipping into his face, no doubt leaving small cuts.

At his speed, he’s barrelling forward. Everything in his backpack must be messed up. He rolls onto the sidewalk and he can feel his skin burn where he scraped on the concrete. He tries to get up. The whispers grow louder. A weight is suddenly on his back, like a tonne of bricks, and he can’t move anymore.

Ten has never been more afraid in his life.

A flash of light appears in the corner of his eye.

He hears something _whoosh_ , like when an airplane flies low, and to prove it his hair is ruffled by the cold wind. Something is pushed off him, and forever quick with his reflexes, Ten rolls out of the way and hops onto his feet, despite how much he’s trembling.

Something cold, yet something warm too, grabs his wrist. Ten recognizes a bracelet. Before he can say anything, he’s tugged forwards and they start running.

The hand eventually leaves him but Ten doesn’t notice it. He has to get home. He has to get home. He has to be safe. The whispers still follow him. He keeps running.

When he runs down the small path leading to his house, their front door gets flung open: his mother stands at the threshold. He gathers the energy for a final sprint and comes crashing into her arms.

“ _GO TO YOUR BEDROOM!_ ” She yells. She never yells. Ten looks at her with wide eyes, hands shaking. Why is she yelling?

Ten’s mother pushes him into the house and he collides into the stairs. What’s she doing? She still faces outside and has her arm drawn backwards, and Ten realizes that she’s trying to shield him. Her long black hair billows in the wind. The sun is setting into the blue hour. The clouds are dark and brewing. She takes a piece of chalk out of her pocket and draws a line in front of the door.

“ _I SAID TO GO HIDE!”_

There’s such a rawness to it. Ten wants to throw up. She looks back at him, and Ten realizes that he _has_ to be scared.

There is something to be afraid of.

He quickly picks himself up and scrambles up the stairs. He’s still wearing his shoes. It doesn't matter. He flings his door open, flings his closet open, and locks himself away in the darkness of it. It’s so quiet up here. There’s just the thudding of his heartbeat, of his blood, his own shaky breaths and, he belatedly realizes, his sobs.

“Winwin,” he finds himself saying, “Winwin, Winwin, I’m sorry, I’m sorry-- you helped me, I’m sorry, I didn’t have the time to thank you.” He balls the fabric of his coat into his fists. “I’m scared.”

“I want to see you, I’m sorry.”

The house is sealed off.

Ten learns this when he’s wrapped up in blankets at the dining table. His mother prepared him a hearty chicken soup. _To recover_ , she said.

Nothing can come in, and nothing can even come close to the house. His brain can’t keep up with her explanations, and he forgot the radius she set, but the point is that everything’s… gone.

He picks up his spoon and idly moves some carrots and celery bits around the broth. His mother is also at the dining table, but soup-less. He looks at her newly manicured nails for some familiarity. Black with jewels at her nail bed.

“You’ve been lying to me,” she says.

Ten takes a spoonful of soup and lets it pour back down. _Plop-plop-plop_. He doesn’t avoid it. “I have.”

“Why?”

“... I wasn’t scared of lying,” he says, “I was scared of what would happen.”

“To you?”

Ten shrugs. He keeps his left hand under the table, buried between his thighs. His bracelet burns against his skin.

His mother sighs. It’s this quiet noise, but it’s so heavy. It sends palpitations through Ten’s heart. “I made a mistake. I shouldn’t have brought you here.”

“Here?”

She gestures around them. “The graveyard. I wanted you to grow your powers. But look at you. I couldn’t even get you to control them, I- I thought I could let you go at your own pace. I shouldn’t have done it.”

“There’s nothing to control.” There’s something trying to leap out from Ten’s stomach. “... It’s been fine.”

“They _know_ that you don’t know how to deal with it.” She cuts through. “They can tell you’re an inexperienced medium. And there are terrible, cruel things in the world, and they seek to take advantage of you.”

“... Winwin wouldn’t do that,” Ten quietly says.

“Whoever chased after you did.”

Ten lets go of his spoon and buries both hands between his thighs. Awfulness claws at him.

“Besides, being dead is like a poison. It can be slow or fast. In the end, you’re left…” She gestures again. It’s those motions where you don’t even know what you want to convey. “So listless. Miserable”

A strong wind blows outside. The weather forecasted heavy rain tonight. How gloomy.

“I don’t want you in that graveyard anymore.”

Ten snaps his head up. “No,” he says.

“It’s not a question. It’s a decision. It’s _final_.”

“I- I don’t want to!”

“It’s not safe, Ten! It’s no place for boys like you! And even then, you’re not safe like this!” His mother stands up. Her chair scrapes across the wooden floor and she makes her way around the table, quickly looming over him. “Give me your hand.”

Ten lifts his right hand. “The other one.”

He looks down. There’s nothing he can do. He offers his left hand to his mother.

“This was given to you by a ghost.” She states, more to herself than anyone else. “I don’t know if that was foolish or trusting of you, I don’t- but listen, Ten, these sort of gifts _mark_ you. It’s even more obvious that you’re a medium. It’s almost contractual - it’s filled with energy.”

“You’re trying to say something,” Ten says. He tries to pull his hand out of her hold but she tightens her grip. A mother’s strength.

“We have to take it off.”

“No!”

“Ten! This has been going on for long enough!”

“You knew!” Ten grits out as he struggles against his mother’s grip. “So why didn’t you say anything before?”

She looks into his eyes. Bores deep into them. Ten’s movements falter; it’s not authority, in fact, there’s nothing commanding in those eyes of hers.

“I didn’t want you to be angry with me. I didn’t want to lose you.”

There’s this small moment where the light in Ten’s heart fades out. It’s always been just him and his mother. Just the two of them, and he hasn’t been the best son, has he?

But still.

With some last punch of strength left in him, Ten twists himself out of his mother’s grip. He tries to run away but she’s too quick: she grabs his elbow and pins him down onto the table. Ten screams. He kicks his feet out. He throws a tantrum. He cries. His throat is sore by the end of it and his head pounds with the effort.

Ten’s eyes are wet with tears, but it’s because he caught a glimpse of his mother that he wasn’t supposed to see, just as she finally pried the bracelet off him:

Regret. Reluctance.

An overwhelming sadness.

“... I will teach you.” She says. Her voice trembles. She’s sat back down, and Ten is still leaning on the table, clutching his left wrist. “So please, I’m begging you, listen to me.”

Ten wrenches out a sob.

I’ll be lonely, Ten wants to say, but it’s a statement that feels so unfair. It doesn’t make sense. I’ll be lonely, I’ll be lonely; from the sunrise to the sunset, from the horizon to the foot of my bed, I’ll be lonely. I’ll be lonely between the stars. I’ll be lonely between the crosses and the angels, I’ll be lonely.

“But he’ll be lonely,” Ten finally says.

“It’s better that way.” His mother says, her point final. Heavy rain starts to pour outside, thundering against the roof. The black nightfall has draped itself onto the world. The day retires, and Ten realizes how tired he and his mother are. “It’s better that way.” She repeats.

But it’s not.

o.0.o

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Winwin will appear much more in the upcoming parts!
> 
> I really managed to write this out in a week... This fic is something that I was very excited about, so I'm happy to be able to share it with you!
> 
> Thank you for reading, any kudos or comments are greatly appreciated!


	2. The wind and the trees

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a couple of weeks is an accurate measure of a few months, actually  
> mostly unbeta'd, just roll with whatever happens  
> edit: i uploaded this a day ago during a lecture and forgot some formatting oops

April 25. Sixteen years old. Hot chocolate.

Mark’s so fucking weird.

Ten knows kids. He knows a bunch of kids - he’s even been visiting his cousins more lately, so don’t you dare say he doesn’t know enough kids to hand out Certified Weirdo badges. Dejun’s a contender for the weirdest, but Mark takes the cake.

“Can you please learn how to tie your skates up by yourself? Please? You’re eleven.”

“I can’t get them tight enough.”

“Have you maybe considered that you can’t get them tight enough because you don’t practice?”

Mark pouts. He crosses his arms and looks away from Ten.

Johnny’s busy with some group project - he has to stay at the university all day, and his parents are currently undertaking a huge catering order. That left Ten with the task of walking half an hour to the community rink with Mark to make it in time for his hockey practice.

Ten rolls his eyes and double-knots Mark’s left skate. “Don’t look now, but Donghyuck just entered the bleachers.”

“What?”

“Go get your ears checked.”

“No, I know what you said,” Mark whines. “I’m just not emotionally ready for it.”

“Well, you better gather up your strength, ‘cause Hyuck’s heading straight for you.”

Donghyuck isn’t weird. Everything makes sense about him. That doesn’t exempt him from not being a normal eleven year old boy.

Ten narrows his eyes as Donghyuck saunters up the bleachers.

The devil is within that boy.

Ten’s half sure, and judging by Johnny’s vague shrugs and _please-I-don’t-want-to-think-about-my-brother’s-love-life_ faces, partially correct in thinking that Mark and Donghyuck are best friends. Donghyuck is over at their house on average twice a week, the common occurrences being after the Wednesday evening hockey practice, where they watch a Blockbuster movie he picked out on Sunday, and on Saturday, so they can do their homework together.

Donghyuck has the face of an angel, but behind his blooming smile he hides a forked tongue. He doesn’t eat or drink, he actually just feeds off the irritation of those he talks back to. He doesn’t sleep because at night, in his bed, he makes devilish little plans for his pranks and most greatest annoyances.

“Mark, Ten,” Donghyuck greets as he slides next to Mark on the bench. “Lovely weather we’re having.”

“Pull off any funny shit and I’m beating your ass,” Ten says.

“Hey, I said I was sorry for drawing on your whatever-History assignment! I thought it was scrap paper. We’ve been through this, Ten.” Donghyuck leans forward to pat Ten’s shoulder while he’s tying Mark’s right skate, wearing a nonchalant expression. Ten shrugs his hand off him.

“God, can you please talk like a normal eleven year old?”

“That’s not even a real metric.” Donghyuck snorts.

Ten decides to ignore Donghyuck and continue his arduous task. He looks up from the flat, white laces of Mark’s skates to the face of the boy himself. He’s staring at Donghyuck, and Donghyuck’s staring elsewhere. He has his hands folded in his lap, like he doesn’t know what to do with them, and if they were anywhere else he’d lose them. Mark’s a fine portrait of youth, with almost-always rosy cheeks, soft black hair, and a perfect eye-smile – but when he looks at Donghyuck, he almost looks movie-like: poster-like. This expression he wears is one that’s so familiar, and in retrospect, it’s ridiculous to see it plastered on a kid.

“ _Hyuck!_ ” Ten turns his head to the other side of the rink, towards the snack bar. A young boy roughly the same age as Mark and Donghyuck waves at them.

“Well, it seems like Jeno’s short of change. We’re getting hot chocolate, d’you want one, Markie?” Donghyuck says as he gets up.

Mark nods. He looks a little dumbfounded.

“Cool, I’ll bring you one. By the way, I hope you’re not planning on tripping on the ice today - if you do, I’ll laugh.”

“Why?” Ten asks.

Donghyuck shrugs. “He looks goofy.”

Ten glares at Donghyuck, not because Ten doesn’t agree with the fact that Mark must look like an idiot when he trips on the ice, probably flailing around and staying flustered for a good couple of minutes, but out of pure principle. Ten glares at Donghyuck because Donghyuck should at least be _sensible_. Donghyuck doesn’t seem to really care about that, however, and hops down to join Jeno.

Mark blows out all the air in his lungs and slumps back on his seat. “Holy moly.”

“Hey, what exactly was _holy moly_ about that interaction?”

“He’s so… pretty.” Mark sighs, his hands still folded in his lap. Ten reaches out to cover them with his own.

“You like him, don’t you?”

Donghyuck’s evil, but Ten sees the appeal in teasing Mark when the boy flushes a deep, deep red and sputters. Johnny’s equally easy to push around - it must be because their mother’s so nice, so spoiling. “N-no! I don’t! I don’t, don’t tell him!”

“Don’t tell him what?” Ten grins.

“That- oh, you set me up! You’re a big meanie! I _don’t_ like him!” A few folks around them turn around at the noise.

“Might wanna pipe down.”

“O-oh, sorry.” Mark smiles sheepishly. Ten gets up and sits down next to him. Everyone knows that Mark has a crush on Donghyuck, and it’s plain obvious that Donghyuck’s also onto it. He can’t help but wonder if it’s denial that fills Mark’s brain with cotton balls or if he’s simply made that way: fashioned to be clueless.

“... Are you sure you don’t?” He asks.

Mark looks down. His chin touches the puffed up collar of his oversized jersey, recycled from Johnny. He’s pouting again. Ten wraps an arm around his thin shoulders. “It’s okay not to be sure.”

Ten can’t help but smile when Mark quickly looks back up. He has these round eyes that always twinkle, and they’re practically shimmering as he widens them, staring back at Ten. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Whoa. That’s crazy.” “That is crazy.”

“What’s crazy?” Donghyuck suddenly appears in front of them. Ten jumps in his seat and the boy cackles, holding two cups of hot chocolate. “Ah, what do I care about what you have to say. Here ya go, Markie Mark.”

Mark smiles, radiant and naïve, as he accepts his hot chocolate. Perhaps he’s not so naïve, Ten remarks, as his cup seems to have more marshmallows than Donghyuck. Then again, Donghyuck had the time to eat most of his marshmallows on the way here. For Mark’s sake, however, it might be better to look at the glass half-full.

Donghyuck catches him staring. Ten shouldn’t feel this unnerved by a tween.

“You gonna stay here all practice?” Donghyuck asks him. Mark nods in Ten’s stead. “Coolio.”

When the kids hit the ice, Ten settles at the top of the bleachers so that he can lean his back against the wall. He’s never been a fan of hockey, so he doesn’t really pay attention to whatever they’re doing in the rink, but even as his eyes wander around the arena, they always fall back towards Donghyuck and Mark.

You should know, shouldn’t you, when you like someone? Maybe when you’re eleven, the concept of _like_ isn’t sophisticated enough to recognize. It’s not like kid crushes make any sense or bring anything into fruition - but you should know, shouldn’t you?

That’s what makes Mark the weirdest kid he knows.

Ten draws his knees up to his chest and burrows himself into his hoodie as he contemplates.

He brings his hand to his left wrist. His mother made him a new bracelet. This thin, red, braided thing is enchanted to ward ghosts away from him, and can only be removed and fastened by his mother. _But you sealed the house off,_ Ten told her when she slipped it onto his wrist. It didn’t feel right. It was like a replacement. _You made it safe._

She looked at him with these tired eyes - it didn’t feel like the tiredness was pointed at him, though. There was a tiredness that dragged their peculiar house down, and it drew the bags of her eyes down too. _It’s for outside._ She quietly said. Then she tapped his wrist and smiled, saying she was going to buy a cake from the bakery. A very delicious one. Ten didn’t say anything, just smiled in kind; and up, they were artificially bringing up the mood of the house, up.

He weasels a finger between the bracelet and his skin. He looks back to the rink.

The coach is briefing the team about something or another. The acoustics in ice rinks are always weird and terrible, sounds echoing and bouncing off walls too easily - it’s a gross sort of noisiness. At the back, near the boards, are Mark and Donghyuck. They’re obviously not listening at all and are holding their helmets by the chin strap, right on the edge of their fingers, laughing about something. Their heads are close together as they look down, knees bent in laughter and in intimacy as they close off a small part of the world to themselves. It feels like no one can skate up right next to them or in front of them, there’s simply no room; it would count as an intrusion. Donghyuck bumps his forehead against Mark’s, and then does it again, until it looks more like a nuzzle than silly child’s play.

Mark smiles. Donghyuck smiles with him.

Something happens in Ten’s heart, some uncharted event that no one hears or sees as it passes: but it drops, down a cliff, down a sinkhole, into the sea, into the earth.

He strokes the material of his bracelet with his thumb, and wills his thoughts away.

o.0.o

October 30. Sixteen years old. Too much.

Once a fool, always a fool - Ten realized this perhaps a little too late. Johnny once told him that the apocalypse would never come in one fell swoop, the world was far too big for that; the misery would slowly gather and be dismissed, the powerless would suffer greatly, and finally, when true darkness would cover the world and seep into the lives of the untouched, would the world decree _apocalypse!_ Foolishness is cultivated the same way apocalypses are, and it is only realized at the point of no return.

Ten has only been gathering foolishness up to now.

After being baptized with his new bracelet, Ten’s training with his mother began. He never really thought of what his training would entail, and no amount of thinking would have come close to the real thing. There were a lot of dimmed lights and candles. His mother’s words. Lots of trembling, lots of fear, lots of mistakes. He could have easily started to fear the dark, it would’ve at least been an excuse to buy a bunch of string lights, projectors, and cute night lights, but his brain decided that it wasn’t worth it; gloomy boys in gloomy houses must be accustomed to darkness and tailored to it.

Ten wondered multiple times why he had to subject himself to such taxing work - somewhere in his brain, this became something about taking over the business. There were so many things to learn, terminologies and types and rituals, processes to memorize and things to recognize: it could feel like an unnecessary chore. But once a fool, always a fool, and as he sat in front of his mother, holding out a hank of yarn a lovely shade of ochre that she spun into a ball, opening his mouth around that question, he looked down to the bracelet around his wrist and found his answer.

This was no power, but a burden. Nothing Ten was doing was for the business, even if he tagged along on his mother’s more mild cases; this was a burden, and Ten was a fool.

There was a case he went to. Something went wrong - completely out of pocket, completely unexpected. He had the bracelet off so that he could practice, but whatever they dealt with was far more, well, not powerful, not cruel, not evil, just simply _worse_. Given his mother’s presence he was just knocked out cold, but he had a high fever for days. It felt like something went inside him and kept trying to claw its way out. It pushed at his throat and dug its nails into his stomach, and in his feverous delusions, he would often lift his shirt just to check if he was still in one piece.

Ten’s own birth gave him a ticket on an old black train, cursed to wander through its carriages forever, weaving between its occupants. If he wasn’t careful, then he’d end up too early at its final destination.

This torture was a necessity.

It’s not to say that he’s not doing well - in the first few months he was greatly improving on his concentration and his awareness over his heightened senses. But then the fever incident happened two months ago, and his mother put everything on hold. And like the apocalypse, like foolishness, that incident wasn’t the sole marker that made everything come to a stop: his soul was getting steadily worn down till its breaking point.

Since the fever, Ten’s always felt cold. He wears extra thick socks indoors and gloves, and his mother knitted him a handsome scarf from the wool they spooled together. He sleeps with the weight of three blankets atop his comforter. He walks about in thick sweaters.

His heart is always cold, and his heart is heavy with a foolish weight.

See, Ten miscalculated how long the indefinite period of _becoming safe enough_ was. The training itself is one thing, but there’s the other thing.

He doesn’t want to think about it.

Ten finds himself at the door to Taeyong’s house. Not exactly at the door, a little further than that: down the path from the door, a bit out of view from the windows. He shuffles his feet on the ground and drags his shoes across a few yellow leaves.

The thing is, Ten has been feeling so lonely. He’s so cold and he’s so lonely, and he ends up craving the coldest touch he can imagine - that slim, frozen hand under flower printed sheets.

In order to not think about it, he must fill that empty space.

He’s picked up a habit of going over to Taeyong’s and lying down with him, either on the couch or on his bed. Taeyong’s just nice like that, just so lovely, leads Ten through his bedroom door to pad across the hideous hot pink faux-fur rug that makes Ten grimace at the mere sight of it, and they collapse on Taeyong’s mattress together, staring up at the Spice Girls poster on the ceiling. They burrow under the blankets and the comforter, and Taeyong lets Ten tangle himself around his body until every part of him is flush with liveliness.

Taeyong’s always good with these things. No one else would let him do that - it probably helps that he’s his only friend comfortable with his own sexuality, and Ten’s for that matter.

He’s reluctant to come over. It’s been a week since the last time they did it. They were listening to Taeyong’s new mix and lo, Johnny had burst into the room. Of course, because it had to be fucking Johnny, Ten’s spent the last week chasing after him to explain that he wasn’t dating Taeyong; Taeyong had been so upset over his reaction that Ten doesn’t really feel like intruding once more.

He walks away. His heart is still cold.

His heart remains unbearably heavy.

It built up, didn’t it? Did he ever notice it? All those times he sat by the windowsill, tugging on his bracelet, was it all bubbling inside him? Was it staining him black?

But he checked his tongue in the mirror a few days ago, and it was still a lively rose. He pulled on his bottom lip, stretched it to feel the skin crack, and when he let go, watched the small droplets of blood pearl on his mouth. Ten was very much alive and pink and warm, and really needed chapstick, too. Ten was alive. Ten _is_ alive.

Winwin is not.

He squeezes his eyes shut and balls his fists. He doesn’t want to think about it.

Ten is never alone.

Winwin _is_.

All this, it’s built up too much, hasn’t it?

Ten breaks into a run. He runs down the gloomy streets of their neighbourhood, his head pounding, the asphalt rolling underneath him as he runs down the hill to the library; he runs almost desperately, but Ten isn’t running away.

His heart follows a trail it’s been avoiding for months.

When he reaches the gates of the graveyard out of breath, his bracelet burns against his skin. It’s going haywire and it hurts, and as he gasps for air he stutters when he realizes the gates are shaking. Something is out for him, but as long as he respects his distance, it can’t reach him.

“Winwin,” Ten breathes out. He really isn’t used to running this fast for this long. “Winwin, are you there?”

He grips his bracelet: it burns his hand, his skin turning red, but it takes his mind off the initial pain. Winwin lives at the back of the graveyard, maybe he can’t hear him. “WINWIN! I’M HERE!”

There’s a loud _thud_ behind the gates. Ten gulps, his palms are clammy, but he can’t leave yet.

“I’M SORRY!” His voice cracks on the last word. “WINWIN, I’M SO SORRY!”

He vaguely registers the fact that he’s crying. His throat hurts from yelling.

“I didn’t leave you,” Ten says, shakily. Hopefully his voice will carry over. “I didn’t leave you, don’t think I left you, I didn’t- I didn’t want to,” he lets out a sob and swallows another one back into the turmoil of his stomach.

A strong gale lashes from the graveyard: he almost loses his footing, but he catches himself in time. He can’t help but wonder what exactly is trying to burst out of the graveyard - there’s not exactly time to contemplate as his eyes blur with tears and the burning in his arm becomes almost unbearable. His mother’s spells are working too hard, they’ll overheat and come apart.

“Winwin, Winwin please don’t- please don’t forget me, I’m begging you, please don’t forget me, that would be so unfair; I-” Ten chokes on another sob and grits out a cry of pain. He folds onto himself as he continues gripping the bracelet, teeth clenching, and a few of his tears spill over onto the concrete under him. _Drip-drip-drip_. Little black circles at his feet.

“I won’t forget you, see, I won’t forget you,” Ten looks up and sniffles. His fat tears drip down from his chin and he can’t even breathe from his nose anymore. “Winwin, you can’t forget me, ‘cause I- I- I _can’t_ forget you.”

The wind howls from the graveyard - leaves are thrown up chaotically into the air and the trees are in an uproar, and Ten wants to scream with how much his arm hurts, but it’s not enough.

“You can’t forget me, you can’t forget me, ‘cause I’ll be back, see? I’ll take care of you, I’ll be back, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so--”

The ground shakes. Ten loses his balance and falls on his bum - the concrete’s horribly cold. Silence falls around him, a brief moment where he can hear his own frantic breaths and count the seconds where he’s too scared frozen to _move_.

In front of him, the ground starts to split. It starts at the gate with a tiny crack, and after a single heartbeat that punches through the entirety of Ten’s body, a shockwave starting from his chest that makes the tips of his fingers and toes tremble, the crack grows. It makes this horrible sound, a sound that shouldn’t be, and it makes something build, build, build in Ten’s chest.

Like a clap of thunder, the crack splits through the concrete before him, and the earth starts to move.

Ten scrambles to his feet. The bracelet _screams_ , it rips through his entire arm and it feels like it’s splicing it from the rest of his body; he starts to run back home, his heartbeat following the cadence of a semi-automatic, and when he quickly glances back, he sees the crack following him.

The bracelet’s energy thrums again, throbs again, and Ten screams with it. The world is on fire. His body is torn apart, atom by atom, and his scream is the only part of him remaining: he turns a corner, through the inferno, and something in him is set alight.

His mother’s magic builds up, up, up, and releases a wave of energy.

Ten falls to the ground, unconscious.

The train’s steadily making its way through mires of fields. They’re wheat fields, Ten notices from his seat, and the soft golden heads ripple in the cold wind, small shimmers through the greyness that submerges outside. A few silos stand tall in the distance.

A man stops by his seat. He’s wearing a train uniform. Well, Ten’s assuming it’s a uniform for train staff. He’s never been on a train or seen a movie that takes place in a train. It can’t be too different from airplane staff. The man doesn’t have a face, in fact, the man isn’t made up of all the fleshy composites that you may call man: above his white collar and under his hat is a gelatinous, black mass, almost see-through, shaped like a head with a nose poking out. Between his sleeves and his gloves where his skin would peek is the same Jell-o-y substance.

He tends his hand out. His other hand holds a hole puncher.

Ten bites his lower lip. “I’m not going anywhere.”

The inspector retracts his hand, but he doesn’t leave the side of Ten’s table. The wheat fields keep rolling by.

“I’m a little cold,” Ten says. “Are there any blankets?”

The inspector shakes his head. The train rumbles on steadily. The sound of a train is more comforting than the rumble of a plane - planes sound very electronic, sometimes, as the engines are adjusted and the panels on the wings move to accommodate the wind and altitude, but this old black train, a steam powered locomotive, carries forth with a constant, steady, deep chugging sound.

“Could you help me with something else, then? I’m looking for a passenger named Winwin. I think he should look fourteen. He has a lovely laugh.” Ten taps his fingers against the table. The inspector says something: it sounds like someone talking underwater, but Ten understands it.

“Oh… he already reached his destination, huh?”

Ten bites his lower lip again. He wrings his hands together and pokes at his nail beds. Outside, the wheat fields have turned into corn fields.

The inspector speaks again.

“My mother is waiting for me? Can you take me to her?” The inspector nods and steps aside to let Ten get off his seat. He follows the inspector down the corridor, watches the carriage doors slide open and close; he passes by other passengers, but their forms aren’t clear, only their clothes. He wants to ask them if they saw Winwin, but he doesn’t have time to stop: the inspector keeps walking down the length of the train at a steady, brisk pace, and Ten has to follow.

The carriages get darker and darker. The oil lamps get dimmer until they’re not lit anymore. The grey sun outside becomes the moon. Ten walks through darkness.

There’s a song playing. Ten frowns, confused. He strains his ears to make it out - the further he walks, the louder it is.

_You can dance, you can jive_

_Having the time of your life_

_Oooh, see that girl, watch that scene_

_Digging the Dancing Queen_

Ten wakes up in his bedroom.

“ _Friday night and the lights are low,_ ” A voice hums. “ _Looking out for a place to-_ oh, sweetheart, you’re awake. You gave me a fright.”

He tries to get up, but his limbs won’t listen to him. It’s like his head is in a fishbowl. Something cold gets pressed onto his forehead.

Ten’s mother is sitting by his bed. She cups his cheek with one hand, her skin a bit cool, but it soothes the fire under his skin. “Something didn’t feel right and I found you down the path,” she starts saying as she adjusts the cloth on Ten’s forehead. “Are you in the right shape to tell me what you were doing?”

He gathers up a few moments before trying to reply. His brain’s in a right fuzz. The cream walls of his room hurt his eyes. He wasn’t here before, was he? Or was he always in his bed?

It doesn’t matter, doesn’t it?

Ten swallows a few stones of truth, unsure if they’re supposed to see the light of day. “... I was curious.” His voice is surprisingly scratchy, it makes him grimace. “To see. What would happen.”

“Now why would you do that?”

Ten turns his head on his cool pillow to look at his mother. The fabric’s soft against his cheek, like a caress. “I don’t feel like it’s… working.” he says. “I don’t feel like I’m getting better at this whole… medium thing.”

She hums. Ten closes his eyes. Abba is still playing.

“I guess you’re ready to start again.” His mother says. She takes the towel from his forehead and soaks it back into the basin of cold water. “You have a good base, we’ll keep going.”

“Okay.”

She hums again, and then she starts humming to _Super Trooper_. It might be one of the most soothing sounds that exist in the world.

“Do you feel better now?”

“‘Bout what?”

“Your itch.”

Ten takes a moment to think.

“It’s lighter,” Ten says, quietly. His voice drifts above his head, above the bed, above the string of lights on his wall: his consciousness drifts with it, and he sinks his head further into the pillow. “I think.”

Ten doesn’t know how much it will keep going. Maybe his hands are doomed to be freezing forever, and all of his friends will forever cringe when he touches them. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to face Winwin without joining him on the other side. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever have closure. And even just for tomorrow, Ten doesn’t know how it’ll be to hand out candies that he used to send to Winwin, longing for a year-ago memory.

But for today, for now, Ten feels a little lighter. The water has pulled back on the shores of guilt. Ten was closer to Winwin than he ever was in the past few months.

“Sleep, now.” His mother tells him. Her warm hand is on his stomach, a heavy, reassuring weight.

Ten’s eyes slowly close. A long, drawn out sigh escapes his lips, and it travels around his room before slipping through the cracks of the old window frame: and out, it goes, out, passing by his mother’s garden and through the hedge and chain-link fence; out it goes, out, blown by the wind across dozens of tombstones and angels, before it settles around a little stone lamb, like a blanket of a whisper.

A train rumbles in the distance.

Ten vaguely sees a boy from the carriage’s window, and he feels a little warmer.

o.0.o

April 22. Seventeen years old. A prayer through the night.

There’s quite a strong downpour outside. The rain hits the roof harshly and practically downs out every noise in the house; the grandfather clock is no more, nor is the nature documentary his mother is watching downstairs, and even the soft, Guaranteed-Sleepytime mix that Taeyong made for him is covered up by the harsh noise. It’s been raining since mid-afternoon and dark since then: the heavy, black storm clouds made sure to block out the sun, calling the night early.

Ten, wrapped up in his blankets, is sitting by the window. The world gets sleepy at times like this, the minutes stretching into hours with no real delimitation; all that matters is that it’s dark and wet outside, and everyone should be safely indoors. His breath fogs up the glass, and he’s chilly from the draught coming through the old wood. It’s not so bad, like this: spring coldness comes with a sobering feeling of conscience regarding every part of your body. The cold air embraces your face, your hands, it fills up your lungs with coolness and is felt through every vein, all the way to your toes and forgotten capillaries.

He breathes out into the window and draws a cat face.

“... You can write the passing months, can’t you?” Ten says. “You can write one, two, three, the way I showed you - do you hate me when you do so?”

The constant drumming outside continues. Maybe, on some random chance, on some hopeful chance, it might be drowning out a few words. But Ten doesn’t know. No-one knows.

“But, see, there’s something in that graveyard, Winwin, something that seems to wait by the gates. Does it try to hurt you too? You’re only fourteen, Winnie, how can you try to fight anyone?” Ten rambles on, occasionally looking up as if he’s talking to someone. “You’re too young, Winnie. You’re too good for that.”

He breathes out again and draws two cats.

“You can write your name, can’t you? That name from me? Do you think of me when you do so? If you can sleep at night, do you dream of me?” His blanket slips off his shoulder and he brings it back up, further cocooning himself. “Because I do,” Ten says, too soft for the rain to care.

“... Is it long for you, too? ‘Cause it’s an eternity for me. But you already know eternity, don’t you? Does it hurt the same for you?”

The trees rustle with the storm’s wind, and the branches scrape against the side of the house. A few tap on the window, like a hand knocking to get in. It messes with Ten’s imagination, so he breathes out again, blocking them from his view. “How cruel the world must be, huh, Winwinnie? But what can I do today but tell you goodnight?”

The graveyard outside is suddenly illuminated by a great flash of white light: Ten counts the seconds before the world rumbles, groaning. Five. The lightning bolt was pretty close, then.

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow, like usual, and I’ll consider it as praying - either way, I’ll never know if you’re listening.” Ten says, voice low like a confession, spreading his hand onto the cold glass. He taps his fingers against the pane and sighs, fogging up the window again. Absentminded, he draws a heart.

He quickly wipes it off with his blanket.

The rain continues hammering outside, and Ten retires to bed.

o.0.o

Halloween afternoon. Seventeen years old. Toffee-chocolate.

There’s very little to do on Halloween when you’re seventeen. There’s decorating and baking, he guesses, but there’s nothing that special about it. The guys in his grade are all assholes and he doesn’t want to attend any of their parties, much less get black-out drunk with them.

It’s been difficult to feel like a normal teenager lately, anyways.

Ten has always been peculiar, but with his training, he doesn’t think he can connect back to the standard adolescent experience. What used to be most of his free time has been turned into sessions with his mother, trying to control what he perceives and what he doesn’t; what he lets ghosts see, what defenses he has built up in him, how to keep the flame of his soul untouched by the cold hands of the dead.

It’s terribly hard to consider the world the same. Hauntings, possessions, cursed objects and the whole blood-gushing-from-the-walls thing, which is way more common than he thinks, can really change a man. A part of it is the entire contemplation of death and evil - the eternal questions that plague him as he tries to sleep, the confrontation with man’s inner violence. The other part is just how… mundane it becomes.

Take the blood-gushing-from-the-walls thing. Half the time, it’s just paint - the term for it is still pretty gross enough to sound haunted. _Surfactant leaching_. What a mess. Ten’s mother has resolved a solid third of her client’s ghastly trials and tribulations with simple home improvement trivia. He’s had to help her screw cabinets, fix lighting, and sometimes just move objects around so they’d stop casting ominous shadows. Ten should just apply for a job at Home Depot. He could consult on paranormal experiences on top of it.

It’s also apparent how much this is just a job to his mother. From what he gathers from her, she does feel a sense of duty to serve people in these matters, else she wouldn’t know what to do with her ability, but her going to the nail salon or someone’s country bungalow in the middle of nowhere because something keeps breaking the windows is uncannily similar. She’s been watching antique shows, lately: they’d be investigating a house where a ghost reportedly keeps killing small animals and leaving them in various areas of the house, and she’ll just point out that the owners have a genuine 18th century Mahogany cabinet. Then she’ll try to make him guess how much they could sell it at auction. People are crazy, they just spend thousands of dollars on whatever bullshit to fill their house, and then lose it in a fire, a flood, or in the hands of a vengeful ghost with a pair of keys.

And then Ten helps with narrowing down where the ghost is, his mother does her whole candles-and-runes on the ground schtick, and she has him write up the receipt. At least he gets paid.

Halloween’s a bit ruined because of that, too.

It’s not as if the past year hasn’t been deeply terrifying, it’s that Ten tries not to think of it. His mother’s bracelet is a constant reminder of the danger he’s in, fittingly stained blood red. The more he’s taught how to keep himself safe, the more he learns about dark things, terrible things; he’s cried an irreverent number of times in the passenger seat of his mother’s car, choking on each breath and pressing his palms to his eyes in case it would purge the latest horror he’s had to witness, and laid listless in his bed, the popcorn ceiling swirling and swirling in his vision, as the tiredness of keeping his head afloat leaves him pinned to his sheets.

In those times, his mother will hold him, and he wonders what she had to go through before becoming the woman she is today.

There’s also the other thing.

Ten doesn’t understand why he has to be torn away from-

He shakes his head and the thought vanishes.

At least at their age and with their part-time jobs, Ten and Kun can buy themselves some candy and eat as much as they want. They’re lying atop of a picnic table in the park near their school, the grass yellow and the brown leaves milling about with the playful breeze, five different bags of candies and chocolate open between them. They already finished the potato chips a while ago.

“Did you see the guidance counselor?” Kun asks.

“Not yet. It’s next Wednesday for me. Did you?”

“Yeah.”

“What’d she say?”

“She doesn’t really say anything. She gives you a horribly long questionnaire and she reads her files while you work through it, and it’s all questions like ‘ _I like to help people’_ which you answer on a scale. Then she gives you college pamphlets, and she only gets to the talking if she’s not satisfied with what you said.”

Ten fiddles with a wrapper. “So what did you say?” It slips out of his grip and he picks it back up again.

“Well, I told her that I wanted to be a pi- give me that, you’re useless. Here.” Kun unwraps the small toffee-chocolate and plops it in Ten’s waiting hand. “I told her that I wanted to be a pilot, and she was like _mm-hmm,_ and I didn’t really know what I was supposed to add. So I told her that I didn’t have the money for flight school and a license, and I didn’t want to go into the Air Force just so that I could learn to fly a plane.”

“What’d she do with that?”

“She said _mm-hmm,_ read my questionnaire, and said that I should be a preschool teacher.”

Ten scoffs. “That sounded pointless.”

“It really was.”

Ten doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do after high school. He kind of assumed he’d take over the business. Maybe if he had a business degree or something in accounting, it might be useful. But that costs money, and it’s not something he really needs.

“I wonder how Taeyong did it.” Ten says.

“Or Johnny.”

“Johnny’s stupid, who cares what he thinks?”

“Oh, speaking of Taeyong,” Kun sits up. “I heard that he was gonna be a slutty nurse for tonight.”

Ten barks out a laugh. His toffee-chocolate briefly slips into his throat and he coughs it back up, spitting everywhere. Kun laughs at him. “Like- like hell he is! He’s not capable of that much.”

“But he said so!”

“It’s way too powerful for him.”

“Can you handle being a slutty nurse?”

“Please, who cares?” Ten wipes his mouth with the sleeve of his flannel shirt. “What’s the point of being a slutty nurse if Johnny won’t even look at him? How lame.” Kun unwraps a bright green candy, obviously sour, and pops it into his mouth. “He’s liked Johnny for a long while, huh?”

Ten cackles. “‘Cause he’s stupid.”

Kun chews on his candy. He looks out to the distance, and he looks very delicate like that. He would crumble if you touched him, that’s how much he’s thinking. “Could you wait for someone that long?” Kun asks.

Ten has his mouth open on a smile, but his brain short-circuits on a comment. HIs heart deflates. He doesn’t understand.

“Ah, who am I kidding. You move too fast for that.”

“What do you mean?” Ten asks. His eyes are glued to the sky, they dare not look at whatever expression Kun might be wearing. The white clouds slowly roll by. A flock of birds are migrating above in a V-formation, leaving this earth for another piece of earth, and Ten’s heart finds itself wandering, too; he presses his hand against his chest to stop it from walking too far.

“Just that you’re free spirited.”

Despite his efforts, his heart opens a dark cupboard under the stairs, and steps inside before he can warn it not to go any further. It wanders deep into the small room, and at every step tea candles are lit, their small flames flickering. Ten watches with apprehension when it kneels at the end of the room, where the back of the stairs meet the floor. Nothing happens, but the relief is short lived: the memory of a broken sob fills the quiet room with such force that Ten’s heart falls, the entire weight of the world pulling it down.

He _is_ waiting.

With every cold wind, he waits. He’s found himself several times holding a pair of scissors, tempted to cut this bracelet only his mother can take on and off him, just to see if these chills are real, if that light from the graveyard wasn’t just the sun off a windshield. With every star that he counts when he can’t sleep at night, he waits. He glows a gloomy, blue light as he presses his cheek against the cold window, and pretends there is someone on the other side.

“But I’m waiting,” Ten says, quiet. “Don’t say I’m not waiting.” he breathes out, gloomy blue tears stuck in his throat.

“... I’m sorry.” Kun rubs Ten’s shoulder.

There isn’t anything to say. Ten goes back to watching the sky. After a few minutes, he chooses not to think about it.

Ten has a silly little cape on and a bright orange, pumpkin shaped bowl cradled in his lap. His mother has a purple pumpkin. They’re filled to the brim with candy, and between their chairs, their family of jack-o-lanterns stand proudly. To honour the mood they turned the lights off, and it’s a perfect Halloween night.

“I wish Mark was still tiny. He was really cute in his costumes.” Ten says.

“His mother probably thinks the same.” Mothers all seem to think the same according to his own. Ten hums.

Ten wonders if his mother thinks the same. Mothers seem to care a great deal - if ghosts still had their mothers, perhaps things would be different. If the children in the graveyard still had theirs, then--

Ten cuts himself off.

He’s had to become very good at controlling his thoughts. That ability was already quite well-developed, but his mother taught him how to do it tenfold. _You can’t let them in_ , she’d say. _It’s like poison._

He wonders, sometimes, if he resents her. If she’s the one who doesn’t understand certain things. If Ten’s worldview is the one that’s right, and he should be free to find that cold hand he hopes waits for him.

He can’t deny that the world is dangerous, but Ten wants to keep hoping.

“... Do you love me?” Ten finds himself asking. It tumbled out of his mouth without warning. He taps his fingers against the plastic bowl.

“I do.” His mother replies, seemingly unfazed.

“Then why do I feel so gloomy, like this?” He furrows his brow in that deep, sad way you end up doing when you want to cry.

There’s a heavy pause. The candles in the pumpkins keep flickering, shadows playing on the walls.

The doorbell rings. Ten leans forward to open the door.

“ _Trick-or-treat!_ ”

They’re greeted by a doll, a bank robber, a Star Trek officer, and a cat.

“Aren’t you all adorable!” Ten’s mother squeals. She has this big, wide smile on her mouth, and it’s all genuine. “Now, take this candy before I decide to eat you!”

“She’s very serious about that.” Ten adds. The children laugh as they drop a few candies into their bags, sing their chorus of _Thank you_ s, and his mother leans forward to shut the door when their backs are to them.

Ten leans back on his chair and holds his breath. His mother seems to be doing the same. He plunges his hand into the bowl and idly moves the wrapped candies around, swirling them, feeling them bump against his hand and fill the room with some sort of noise that doesn’t choke him.

“...Because I made the mistake of raising you into a kind child.” His mother breaks their silence, solemn. The furrow in his brow returns and he grips the bowl tighter. He’s about to ask her what she means when the doorbell rings again.

Ten leans forward to open the door.

“ _Trick-or-treat!_ ”

How annoying.

It’s now a scarecrow, a hockey player, and a Gameboy. The last costume is pretty impressive. They give out the candy and have a good laugh. The scarecrow waves them goodbye at the end of the path, and Ten’s mother closes the door, plunging them back into darkness.

“Tell me about him.” She immediately says when they’re alone.

He looks at her incredulously. She shoots him back those _don’t-look-at-me-like-that-I-am-your-mother_ stares, but it’s just… shocking, really.

They’ve been avoiding this for over a year. Ten licks his lips and struggles to figure out where to begin.

“His name is Winwin,” He starts. “But he named himself that because he doesn’t remember his own name. It was on Halloween two years ago. Y’know, when I was running for student council, and I got voted but then they disqualified me ‘cause they found out I’d been hiding Johnny’s shoes, and it apparently was bullying.” Maybe that’s not something he should remind his mother about.

“I think… for a long while he was a baby ghost. But then I- I saw one of your books about ghosts. And I felt sorry for him, because I could hear him walk around, sometimes, y’know. So I think that I made him grow. Doesn’t that make me responsible for him? Or maybe. I guess I kind of want to be responsible. I- he could- _can_ write his name really well, now. ‘Cause I showed him. It’s very neat. He knows how to write _cat_ and _kitten_ , which was really important to him, and I taught him his numbers and how to write _I am happy_ , and _I am unhappy_.” He picks at a nib of plastic that sticks out from the bowl’s rim. “He started to really like drawing flowers. I left him a book full of different ones. He’s not very good at it, but he likes it. He’s scared of going too far from the graveyard because the world has changed so much, and the people are unkind.”

His mother hums in acknowledgement.

“He has a good laugh. It starts all soft like he wants to stay quiet, and the first few noises come out like squeaks, like they escaped him by accident. Then he starts giggling, and then he’s laughing, and it’s such a good sound. And I miss it.” Ten’s voice starts wavering. “He’s very curious and then has me thinking about many things I take for granted. His favourite colour is blue, but I think yellow suits him the best. If he had a face it’d be lovely. He could be ugly and he’d be lovely, because having a unique face to display your unique thoughts is lovely. His favourite food was salted duck eggs, well, I’m the one saying _was_ , I don’t know if you keep having a favourite food after so long.

“He’s my friend,” Ten says as he traces the rim of the bowl with his finger. “Even if he doesn’t think so, I’ve decided so. He’s my precious friend. His taste in objects is a bit strange, but he likes shiny things, and what he finds sentimental is a little strange, too, but really when I think about it, I think I’m just as strange. ‘Cause I like it.

“You said that being dead was like poison… when I think about it too much, it breaks my heart, y’know. ‘Cause I think that- I feel that he’s broken, somewhere. And I guess it sounds obvious, but… y’know, when we would hang out, it was the goodest part of the week. It feels wrong for him to carry all that. But I figured that out too late. And I had the time to be sorry about it, but I had no time to fix it.”

Ten’s voice betrays the tears building up in his eyes. “Last year, I went to the gates of the graveyard ‘cause I wanted to see him. And I yelled his name, and I yelled I was sorry - but I don’t think he could hear me. I don’t think I ever considered it working. It was so selfish of me to do so, but I wanted, I wanted to just- just pretend. Now he’s still alone, and it’s all my fault. He has to be mad at me - I’d be mad at me too. Left without a word. It’s been so long, too. He’s lonely, and it’s all my fault.”

Hours spent staring up at the ceiling have all amounted to this: the weight in his stomach disappears as if he finished his confessional, but he doesn’t want to see it go. He doesn’t want to clear his ghost from his mind. The admission of guilt is still heavier than anything else. The taste of toffee-chocolate is still thick in his mouth.

The candles flicker some more. Ten brings a hand down to feel their warmth.

The guilt travels in the small area of their peculiar house’s entrance, and he finds it landing in the way his mother strokes her bowl absentmindedly, lips pursed as she’s lost in thought.

The doorbell rings. Ten leans forward to open the door. Two siblings, peanut butter and jam: Ten digs through his bowl to give them Reeses’ cups, and they’re gleeful. His mother leans forward to shut the door when they’re walking back to their parents.

They’re plunged back into silence. He doesn’t press her.

She swallows quite audibly. It sounds like her nose is congested and she breathes out in a way that makes it seem like her chest is trembling. She brings a hand to it, clearing her throat the way middle aged women do, and breathes out in a way that sounds like she doesn’t want to cry. That could be a stretch, some figment of his imagination, but he chooses to believe it.

“Your grandmother sent me a package by mail. It’s your great-grandmother’s journal. I haven’t been able to help you properly… We don’t share the same experiences, so I reached out.”

It’s Ten’s turn to swallow audibly and breathe out shakily.

“I will help you see him. But you have to understand that I’m scared.”

“You don’t have to be afraid.” Ten jumps in.

His mother turns her head to face him. Ten’s stricken by the way the shadows stretch on her face, playing with the orange-yellow light. There’s a glint in her eyes, but he knows better - the light has just caught the few tears she refuses to shed out of principle.

“Ten, I’m your mother. I’m always afraid of losing you.”

His excitement over the implications and dozens of scenarios running through his head will have to take the backseat. He straps them in to make sure they don’t leave him. Right now it’s about their peculiar little household and their peculiar little job, and it’s about a peculiar mother and her peculiar little son.

His mother reaches out and keeps her hand outstretched in the space between them. Ten grabs it as quickly as he can. They hold hands like that with the warmth from the candles kissing their skin, and Ten realizes how little they’ve done this in the past year.

How terribly Ten has missed warmth for the sake of warmth.

o.0.o

January 22. Seventeen years old. A snowball.

This winter’s been a little odd. November and December were unbecomingly warm, and his mother kept going around tutting that it would mean winter was going to bring a few storms. He asked why that would be, and she just swung her wooden spoon around in the steaming kitchen saying that she’s not a meteorologist, how would she know? But, it seems that being over forty means that you can predict weather tendencies pretty accurately, and hark, January greeted the city with abundant snow and freezing rain.

Ten slowly makes his way upstreet, dragging his feet across the thin layer of ice. It’s a careful procedure. His knees will no doubt hurt from being bent during the entire walk, and his abdominal muscles will have to undergo the worst workout they’ve ever been through. Walking on the snow is no safe bet, either: the thin layer isn’t enough to create any form of protective barrier against the ice underneath it.

There’s a playground a few streets up. It’s pretty old and still has a metal slide to burn children’s thighs in the summer, not to mention a wooden cabin that leaves splinters in their hands when they try to climb the log roof. The surrounding area is woodsy - the smattering of trees isn’t enough to be a forest, but enough for teenagers to smoke in - and unkept, with pine needles covering the ground most of the time.

The most important part is that the back of the park gives way to the back of the graveyard. The hedge covering the fence is spotty, and there’s some areas where you can clearly see the tombstones poke out from the snow. It’s the only reason why Ten’s subjecting himself to such a hike.

Ten makes it to the park without slipping on his ass or getting concussed. He trudges through the snow built up from the lack of maintenance during the winter season, his boots leaving a small trench behind him. The view from this part of the fence gives into the children’s cemetery: the back row faces him, and they’re just far enough that he can’t clearly discern any words engraved into stone. He wore his embarrassing and bulky snow pants just for this. Walked around going _swip-swip-swip_ as the waterproof fabric rubbed against itself just for this.

He plops himself down on the snow, and waits.

With his great-grandmother’s journal, things have been changing. While she did leave behind important instructions and useful mantras to not go completely crazy, it’s more like the atmosphere in the house has changed. It feels a little less hopeless, a little less like Ten’s being forced through a bottleneck; it’s much gentler, now. It just might be because he’s finally getting the hang of things, now fully able to understand ghost-speak, but Ten doesn’t feel trapped.

Perhaps it’s because they’re now working towards a concrete goal.

He lies down on the snowbank. It’s starting to snow a bit - clouds cover the sky today, and with the sunlight having nowhere to go, it bounces off the snow and leaves the world in a glaring, grey light. A bright greyness. It’s quite contradictory, but it makes sense. The best thing in the world is watching white snow fall from the night sky, illuminated by the orange gleam of a streetlight, but this is fine, too. You pick a snowflake from the heavens and follow it down, down, where it gets lost in the snow. Another brick in the wall.

Ten wants to believe that every snowflake he watches fall down is special. Each snowflake is unique from the start, but these ones have been seen. It’s highly possible that no one else has seen these snowflakes, ever; Ten is their only witness, their only confidant. Ten is the only one who can call them pretty.

Like ghosts, his great-grandmother wrote. You are one of the few who can reach out to them: you are their witness.

The thing is, the more everything goes on with the exorcisms, the more Ten doesn’t know what to do with his testimonies. His mother expects him to go on the witness stand and act both as the accuser and the judge, and perhaps ghosts who haunt and terrify others do deserve so - but there is no explanation for ghosts like Winwin, for the ghosts he used to hear just mill about in the graveyard. What is there for Ten to say about Winwin?

Ten wrinkles his nose when a fat snowflake melts atop his nose. The snow under him is cold, and with the weight of his body, it’s gone all hard under him. But it meets every curve of his body and his jacket perfectly, and unlike a hard mattress or sleeping on the floor, he’s comfortable. He’s nestled in this world, and his thoughts are welcome.

He keeps watching the snowflakes flutter down.

There is nothing useful to say about Winwin, but Ten would like to be the only one who can call Winwin pretty.

Something rustles behind him, from the pine trees. Ten quickly sits up, his heartbeat quickening.

A black cat emerges from the foliage. Ten looks at it, and it looks back at Ten. It has snow on its nose and its whiskers and it has no collar. It seems quite strong and lithe. Must be a stray. With all the trees and wildlife in this quiet area, there’s quite a few. The cat keeps holding his stare. A wind rustles through the area and the trees with it, the smell of pine coming through strongly: Ten shivers, but his eyes don’t leave the cat, just as its eyes never leave his.

It mewls, and then it’s gone.

Okay.

Ten turns back around, thoroughly unimpressed, and then a bit distressed. God, he’s been distracted- he’s been planning this for days. He quickly gathers himself up and glances at the fence.

There’s a set of footprints in the snow. They came up to the fence and then stopped, the pair of feet facing the park, before walking back into the graveyard. Ten scampers to the fence, kicking snow up, and grips the chain links.

It’s not like footprints in snow this deep look like anything. There’s no definition, there’s just vague foot-shaped holes interrupting the white landscape, but as Ten keeps staring at them, a fuzzy feeling blossoms in his heart.

“...It’s me,” Ten says. “It’s me, I’m here, it’s me,”

“Win-”

A strong gust pushes Ten away from the fence; it knocks the wind out of him as he falls on his bum, but Ten _grins_.

“I’M HERE!”

He’s still met with silence. Ten gives in to a moment of pause and keeps looking straight in front of him. Nothing moves. The air is still.

Something moves above him at an alarmingly fast rate.

“ _Fuck!_ ”

Ten is propelled backwards, his head _thunking_ into the snow when a snowball hits him square on the forehead. His head pounds and his skin stings, the bitter hit of ice and snow prickling like little cuts. There was nothing playful about that snowball: there was a bite to it.

Another gust of wind.

Winwin’s gone. He can feel it.

Maybe Ten’s finally gone and turned loopy. It’s because he’s spent too long in the cold without moving - he knows his cheeks are red without even looking at them, he can feel how cold they are by the snowflakes kissing their surface. His nose became fragile. He can’t exactly feel his feet much. But Ten has to have gone loopy, because his face strains and creaks and cracks as the largest, sun-melting smile graces him in the face of complete rejection.

He’s the most ecstatic he’s felt in _months_.

o.0.o

March 12. Eighteen years old. The lake.

The bus is relatively full. It’s an articulated bus and a couple of people are left standing; there’s a lot of office workers on their way to their 9am work hours, ID cards hanging around their necks or from waist bands, briefcases in hand or on their laps. Ten doesn’t know this route, just that it goes out into the suburbs where the huge tech complex is. He’s close to the accordion, with one foot on the rotating floor and the other on solid ground. Whenever the bus turns, he sways.

He might have fallen at this point were it not for one thing.

“Hey, Lord Vader, plan on loosening your grip anytime soon?”

“Don’t call me that, I’m not even choking you.”

“My bad. Officer Spock, can you consider unhanding me?”

“No, you might run away.”

“Johnny, this is a _public bus_. I don’t even know where we are. You really think I’m going anywhere?”

They must make a sweet portrait, Ten thinks. Johnny could pass as a whole two heads taller than him and he’s glued to Ten’s back, one hand holding the overhead bar and the other caressing Ten’s neck.

Except Ten’s locked in Johnny’s metal death grip, and he’s being dragged out here against his will. Well, not against his will, but Johnny made it seem like a do-or-die situation and Johnny’s been working out lately, so the dying seemed like a plausible outcome. He’s already experimented with trying to bolt out of the side-doors, but Johnny yanked him back like he was a disorderly kitten: it wasn’t dignified, to say the least.

“This is our stop,” Johnny says as he lets go of the bar. He starts to push Ten forward, down the corridor and towards the door.

“I feel like I’m being walked to the plank. Or a prison cell.”

“Ten,” Johnny pushes down on Ten’s neck, gritting out his next words. “I’m begging you to shut up.”

“Then beg.”

Ten gets pushed off the bus, but he lands safely on his two feet nonetheless.

“Like the jam-side of a dropped toast,” he says. Johnny rolls his eyes. “Now what?”

Johnny takes him to some café. It’s those cozy-looking ones, colours rich and deep with soft chairs and soft yellow lighting. They hang their coats on the wall behind them, and Johnny goes to the counter to order something or another. It’s 8:40 in the morning, it’s plainly obvious that Johnny isn’t here because the food is good. This is _business_.

Ten plays with his bracelet as he waits. His mother has been lowering its defenses as he makes more progress: he doesn’t know what he’ll do with it when it becomes completely useless. His thoughts are cut short when Johnny slams down a cup of coffee with a little cat face in the latte art in front of him.

“Hey man, what the fuck?”

“Can you please just- shut your mouth for a bit? I have a favour to ask of you.”

Johnny looks… very un-Johnny-like. He’s the type that likes to be in control, although it’s not always the case when he hangs out with Ten; but right now, it’s plain that neither of them are in control. He has this desperate look on his face that makes Ten frown, and he motions for Johnny to sit down and talk.

“Why me, though?”

“It’s ‘cause… you’re good with these things.”

“What things?”

“Matters of the heart.”

Ten barks out a laugh. “You sure?”

Johnny makes a face. “It’s not funny. You’re one of the most sensible people I know. You’re very thoughtful with stuff, with other people’s feelings.”

Ten stares down at the latte cat face, too embarrassed to look at Johnny. He wraps his hand around the ceramic cup and taps against the warm surface, the small sound dotting their silence. “... Thank you.”

“Thank you?”

Ten shrugs. “No-one else thinks that way. But whatever, what’s going on?”

Johnny’s also holding his warm coffee like his life depends on it. “I- I kinda need to segue into it.”

“Then segue into it.” Ten can’t help but smirk at the way Johnny rolls his eyes.

“... Do you think Taeyong would like your coffee?”

“Hm.” Ten brings the cup to his lips. It’s fine, he guesses. He’s kind of new to this coffee thing anyways, his mother only drinks tea and he doesn’t want to buy a coffee machine. Usually he’ll just go over to Kun’s house and Kris will offer him some, and because it’s Kris, he can’t really say no. He then makes him a cup in a handsome manner, and gives it to him quite handsomely. If Taeyong could get some Kris coffee, it’s a guarantee he’d like it. “I think the cat face makes it so that he’ll like it.”

“I thought so too.”

“Yeah. Is that it?”

“You’re not letting me segue!”

“Get to the point then!”

“Does Taeyong… Do you think Taeyong’s interested… in dating anyone?”

Ten cocks his head. This is unexpected. The slow, carefree music of the café keeps playing in the background as he contemplates his answer and Johnny’s future answer, and most importantly, what expression Taeyong would make with the outcome. “That’s none of my business.” he chooses to lie.

Johnny narrows his eyes. “I know you’re jerking me around-”

“I am.”

“- but listen, like, I trust you with my life. Don’t tell anyone about this, okay?” Johnny leans forward, lowering his voice. Ten leans forward, too, and pats Johnny’s arm to make sure that he sees all the care Ten does have wrapped up for him, beneath all the teasing and pranks. “I think I’m like… a bit interested- I’m starting to see Taeyong differently. I think I might be starting to… y’know… I think I’m starting to,” Johnny drops his voice to a whisper.

“ _Like him._ ”

“You WHAT?” Ten slams the table as he yells. The customers around them turn around and glare at him, but he can’t care. Johnny Suh, after making Taeyong suffer 20 years of existence, has the audacity to open his eyes; Johnny fucking Suh, after crying in the passenger seat three times following a breakup, asking Taeyong to drive him around town to distract him, has the audacity to even _try_.

And Ten is left wondering if Taeyong still has room to forgive.

“You’re fucking kidding me.” Ten grits out, gripping the edge of the table to give him something to do. “You’re a new species of loser, John Joseph Suh.”

Johnny somehow finds a reason to look shocked. “What are you on about?”

“You- Johnny, why do you think I’m mean to you all the time? Sure, part of it is because you’re easy pickings, but look at you! You fucking joke, you guys went to prom together but you kept insisting it was as friends.” Ten starts counting on his fingers. He’s seeing red. “You set up his aquarium together and you kept saying it was ‘cause _friends help each other out_ , you kept- you kept trying to set him up with that upperclassman! What’s his face!” Ten’s counting on three, glaring at Johnny: Johnny seems to shrink under his gaze as he pushes his cutlery around.

“... Baekhyun.”

“With Baekhyun! From your own mouth! Your own volition! Hell, Johnny, you kept insisting for a week that Taeyong and I had a thing together, you _fucking asshole!”_

“Ten, I think we should-”

Ten pauses to take a sip from his coffee, one finger extended to tell Johnny to shut up. He’s already taking psychic damage just thinking about his next point.

“You called Taeyong _neat_ when he was a slutty nurse!” Ten practically yells.

Johnny firmly slams his hands on the table and replies in kind. “I- he- I said it because I thought it was cool of him to challenge gender roles!”

“Johnny!” Ten picks up a fork and points it towards him. _“_ People dress up as slutty nurses to be _sexy_ , you _idiot!_ ”

Johnny picks up a spoon and does the same. “ _You-_ ”

All important things in life happen with the pacing of a sitcom: as it happens, it’s only when Johnny and Ten are threatening each other with cutlery that it dawns upon them that they are, in fact, public disturbances.

Ten cautiously looks around him, slowly scanning the café. The cashier is looking at them, the old lady at the door is looking at them, the three girls at the table in the back are looking at them, the couple beside them are looking at them, and even their damn dog.

They scramble to get their coats and bags and in a second, the door slams shut behind them.

Five second pass before they let out the breath they were holding.

“Fuck, that was a mess.” Johnny says while scratching at his red neck. Ten grumbles in response, bringing his hands up to his own reddened cheeks. “Let’s just walk around.”

“Yeah, let’s.”

Neither of them seem to have anything to say to each other. Ten sure doesn’t have anything as he buries his hands into his coat, clinking his tamagotchis together. Louis and Leon are tenacious little buddies after all they’ve been through, and they find a comfortable home in his right pocket.

Johnny leads him down a little street. The houses lining each side have a cottage-feel to them, nothing like those manufactured suburban homes. They’re on the small side, painted with colours that were once bright but became dull shades of yellow, green, and blue, especially on a grey day like this. He kicks a rock down the street, eyes trained on his feet, and doesn’t see the sight before them until they make it to the T intersection.

A lake stands in front of them. It’s not a big lake, but it’s not insignificant, either. The sides of it are surrounded by a tall forest, and Ten can easily discern the trees on the opposing shore. He didn’t even know this existed.

“Wanna go down to the beach?” Johnny asks as a pickup truck zips by. A few other cars follow it.

“If we don’t get killed crossing the street, yeah.”

They end up waiting a good minute until a red sedan passes them: they sprint across the road, barely jumping over the railing before a black convertible brushes past them. Johnny swears and Ten trips over the fence, falling onto Johnny’s back with an _oof!_

And then it’s back to silence.

They share a look between each other. Johnny then slowly makes his way down to the rocky beach, weaving through shrubs, and Ten slowly follows him. Now away from the traffic, Johnny speaks up again.

“... Do you think I have a chance?” He asks, voice gone all soft.

“Buddy,” Ten says in his nicest, gentlest voice. “You’ve lost all his trust.”

Johnny has a delicate furrow in his brow when he looks down. It’s near impossible to say anything to cheer him up because it’s just the truth. It’s just the damn truth, and all Ten can do is look down with him, a sad feeling weighing them down.

“How do I gain trust back?” Johnny asks. Ten shrugs. “Put yourself in my shoes. Do you like anyone?”

The same, delicate furrow finds its way onto Ten’s brow. He clicks his tamagotchis together, breath caught in his throat. “... I care about someone.”

“Okay, pretend you lost their trust. What would you do?”

Ten’s mouth twists the same way his heart does, and he clenches his fists together. He doesn’t have to pretend. See, Ten doesn’t have to pretend, and see, no matter how many candies are left outside, no matter how many ribbons he ties on the gate at the back of the graveyard, no matter how many candles he lights and how many times he rubs his hands together in an imitation of a prayer, Ten can’t coax a ghost out of a gloomy shape of grief he caused.

“... I don’t know.” Ten says, quiet like he doesn’t want to admit it.

He startles when Johnny’s big hand appears in his line of vision to pat his arm reassuringly. “We’ll figure it out,” Johnny tells him with such warmth. “And it’ll be okay.”

“Yeah,” Ten breathes out.

“Yeah.” Johnny smiles. Ten smiles back, all genuine.

It starts getting chillier as they approach the water. Ten buries his head further into his scarf. They walk across the beach rocks and snow, careful steps atop uneven ground, and soon they’re at the shore. March has been a little warmer, this year, and the lake hasn’t completely frozen over. There’s a thin layer of ice by their feet that Ten lightly presses on with his boot to hear it crack, white lines sprouting from his foot.

There’s a strange shift in the air. He looks around them, but there’s no-one. Just trees and the street behind him. Ten takes a hand out of his pocket to tug at Johnny’s sleeve.

“Hm?”

“There’s- feels weird.” Ten waves around in the air as if it’ll explain anything. Johnny doesn’t say anything for a while, lips pursed before a thought lights up his eyes.

“I have an idea why. It was a story from the Haunted Walk,” He starts to explain. Ten’s grade missed out on the city’s Haunted Walks after their high school was banned for being too disruptive - the grade above them had serious issues, there was destruction of property involved. They missed the chance of walking around parts of the city and learning about ye olde ghost stories from really typical places like the old prison. “They used to drown people in this lake.”

“... Huh?”

“Way back when, they used to drown people in this lake.” Johnny reiterates.

Ten looks around, eyebrows raised. “Like… witches?”

Johnny shrugs. “I don’t really remember. Undesirables, probably. It might be haunted.”

Ten wants to question Johnny further on these matters, but his attention falls back to the lake, as if he was being pulled towards it by an unspoken force.

There’s a layer of fog forming atop of the lake. It’s not like Ten knows much about how the weather works, but it’s unusual. A quiet hush falls over them; Johnny’s is probably one of contemplation, but Ten feels like he can’t talk. He can’t say anything or make a noise, he’s supposed to be watching. The cars on the road behind them fall silent, too, and even if the wind blows and makes the pines and tall trees bend across and around the lake, they make no noise. Ten holds his breath, and slowly lets go of Johnny’s sleeve.

The cold blue of the scenery rustles again with no noise, a frigid breeze kissing Ten’s cheeks, and out, metres before them, out in the vastness of the lake, something moves.

Something pushes up against the ice. It’s difficult to discern it with the fog, and then Ten finally sees it:

An arm emerges from the ice. Cold water drips down the dewy, grey skin, and it turns around so that its palm faces Ten.

Ten watches the arm, and the arm watches him.

It starts to rain, a gentle noise that both breaks through and amplifies the silence. The droplets are cold against Ten’s eyelids and nose, and still cold as they drip down his cheeks, but it’s not uncomfortable. He quickly looks at Johnny and confirms that the older boy doesn’t see anything; he’s distracted. His gaze falls back to the arm waiting for him. The rain falls atop of the ice, creating puddles, and it falls between the beach rocks to make the thin layer of snow melt. The fog slowly dispels, and now they’re in clear view of each other.

How peculiar, how strange, how blue and grey and forest green and quiet, how peaceful, how Ten looks across the lake and feels a peculiar pang in his heart.

And slowly, Ten raises his arm, and waves at the hand.

His heartbeat is pounding in his head as he continues to hold his breath, but the sound isn’t stifling, nor is it quick. Another gust of wind travels through the lake and the forest rustles properly with it, tousling Ten’s hair, and carries with it a peculiar lightness.

And slowly, as if every clock in the world slowed down to carefully plan out how the next few seconds had to pass, the arm waves back.

Ten lets out his breath shakily, and breathes in just as shakily after. The sound of rain accompanies him as he tries to sort through every thought firing through his brain, only to draw a blank: right now there’s just the soft raindrops hitting the rocks, the ice and Ten’s coat, and the picture unfolding before him.

After a while, the hand relaxes, its fingers curling into themselves as if it’s holding something, and Ten finds his hand doing the same. They’re holding a feeling, he thinks, one that Ten will bring home with himself to watch grow in his palm at night, and one that the arm will bring back down to the bottom of the lake to share with the others.

It’s bittersweet.

The rain keeps its gentle pace, and although Ten’s hand is turning bone-white, a quiet sense of wonder spreads through his chest as the arm retires back into the frigid waters of the lake, unseen by all except for a single boy on the shore.

Ten has seen his first ghost, and it sprouts a question nobody has the answer to, not even his great-grandmother:

What do gentle ghosts do when they roam this earth?

o.0.o

September 17. Eighteen years old. Mid-Autumn festival.

It’s been a while since Ten started seeing ghosts. While it does mean that he grips his mother’s hand extra hard before they work on a new case and that his nightmares evolve into darker things, it also means that there’s a dissonance growing between his world and his mother’s.

A crack begins to form, and when Ten looks through it, finds old, familiar thoughts.

It’s that on Tuesdays, the Kim-1922 ghost visits the Langley-1945 ghost, and they sit by the latter’s grave all day long. Kim-1922 laughs a lot, all teeth, and the angle from his bedroom window’s never good enough to judge Langley-1945’s expression, but for Kim-1922 to always laugh, there must be something good going on. On Thursdays, there’s a short child who follows Johnny, Mark, and Daisy close by, hands outstretched to Daisy’s tail. Ten watches the graveyard ghosts conduct their business, watches some go in and out of the gates, some simply hang around, and he’s always further perplexed.

 _Ghosts_ , his great-grandmother wrote, _are tied to this earth because of grievances carried from their past life. As such, they become vengeful, violent, haunting; even at their most passive, they corrupt human life._

If he recalls, all his family members were strictly raised within the framework of the business - Ten was the exception, and he can only attribute it to having a single mother trying her best to raise him well. Maybe that’s why he’s so confused when Zhou-1985 sits on a memorial bench and greets every passerby, ghost or not. He’s also confused about whether you can sit on bench-shaped tombstones, but it’s not the point.

_It is our job to ensure that ghosts don’t harm humans._

There are ghosts who harm humans, Ten agrees. But there also are ghosts who cry by their grave, their misery a dark colour that hasn’t been invented yet. And as such, he’s brought back to square one, when he was nine years old in a cupboard under the stairs, although he can’t currently call himself naïve with the same ease as when he’s looking back on memories.

Ten looks up from his agenda, where he was previously tapping his pencil on the number to the Suh landline, debating on if he should take up Mrs. Suh’s offer to work at their catering business to fill up the hours between helping his mother, to escape through his bedroom window.

His mother has weakened the anti-ghost zone around their house; at this point, the only barrier remaining is to protect the house. They agreed that it might be for the better to not have unexpected visitors. He expected to see curious ghosts float about his window, to be followed the same harrowing way as two years ago, but he’s left alone.

_Don’t let them in. Don’t give them an opportunity. Present yourself as strong. In charge._

_Detached._

Ten is of no more use to the so-called cruelties of the afterlife searching for a vessel.

The sky is a greyish shade of blue, today, with wispy white clouds hanging high above in the stratosphere; and under them, carried through the scenery by a wind that seems only present in the heavens, are little black clouds. The green of the trees is grey, the yellow of the sun is grey, and even the flowers of his mother’s garden are grey. He looks down to his own peachy hands and searches for a trace of greyness. Greyness is strange, Ten wouldn’t be able to say if it comes in specks, as a wash, or as a stain - maybe greyness comes from within.

Greyness is the colour of a ghost’s skin, and greyness is the feeling of a ghost when it walks past you. It is neither gross or just alright, it’s simply something that makes you frown until you walk back home and decide to forget about it.

Ten pushes himself away from his desk and gets up on his feet, wiggling his toes on his bright blue rug. This morning was spent busy with visiting family at Auntie Zhong’s - she and her husband worked like dogs just to buy that big house. They now have five bedrooms and three bathrooms, a walk-in closet, a pool, and a big yard to show for it. Ten spent most of the morning running after Chenle, it was good fun. She gave them the shiniest tin of mooncakes Ten had ever seen, more ornate than the ones they sell where they do their groceries, and neither he nor his mother wanted to sully it by opening it: it’s currently downstairs on the dining table as a centerpiece, waiting.

He pads over to his mother’s bedroom and finds his mother on her bed, propped up by a few pillows and reading through a finance magazine.

“You understand any of that?” Ten asks as he climbs on the mattress next to her.

“Not yet,” she flips the page, “But if I don’t, I’ll have the worst retirement.”

Ten sinks into the pillows and folds his hands on his tummy, staring up at the ceiling. “Can you retire from being an exorcist?”

She hums. “You can retire from anything. Even being a mother.”

“Will your retirement be from being my mother, or from being an exorcist?”

She hums again. “Being your mother.” Ten rolls his eyes.

He tries to read alongside her, but placing your money in whatever-protected-funds and whatever-stocks is confusing and boring. His eyes jump all around the page, looking for something interesting in the pictures and figures, but as expected, finance magazines are drab and a bore.

“But will you?” Ten asks, “Retire from being an exorcist, I mean.” he shifts his gaze to the popcorn ceiling.

“It’s a tiring job.” His mother states, not looking up from her magazine. “Eventually, I will.”

“I thought you had like, a sense of duty.”

“Not all duties last a lifetime.”

Ten picks at the hem of his shirt, twisting the fabric around his fingers. “Then… what will happen to the business?”

It’s a question he doesn’t actually want an answer to, but it’s delivered nonetheless:

“I guess you’ll follow my footsteps.”

Ten screws his eyes shut. His fists clench the fabric of his shirt and he bites his lip, hard, just to make sure he doesn’t make any noise.

“... Ten?”

“Y-yeah?” Ten answers, shakily, eyes still shut.

He hears the crumpling of the magazine hitting the floor, and suddenly his mother’s warm hands are gently prying his hands from his shirt. Once they’re set down on either side of him, his mother cradles his face. He’s compelled to open his eyes, even through the mounting uneasiness building in his stomach; and so, he does.

She has a kind sort of worry on her face.

“It’s… you know, it’s something we can discuss.”

“Is it?” Ten asks, as small as if he were five. She nods.

“I know it’s hard on you.” I hate it, Ten wants to say. It makes me feel all wrong, like the world isn’t right. Like there’s something that wants to make a part of me die. Like I’m missing something. Like condemning spirits to oblivion could be wrong, but here I am, among the darkness and the blood and the chalk lines, consumed in the hysteria of it all, and I think a part of me does die. I hate it, Ten wants to say.

But he doesn’t.

Ten just makes a little noise.

But still, Ten’s mother smiles, those very sad and gentle smiles meant for comforting children who misunderstand. “I know.” she says, like she does know, and Ten simply has to believe so.

She brings him into a caress, and even if he’s now taller than her, she holds him like the five-year old he feels he is. The world is quiet right now, and her heartbeat he hears from her chest is quiet, too, not by volume but by feeling. “You’ve grown so much,” his mother says, and normally Ten would brush it off as something mothers just say because they’re thinking about Abba’s _Slipping Through My Fingers_ , but it sounds so true, so raw. “You confuse me.”

“That would be the homosexuality.”

“Ten, I’m trying to have a serious conversation.”

“Sorry.”

His eyes flutter shut when she starts stroking through his hair. She tuts as she rubs a few of his arid strands together, clearly disapproving of how Taeyong bleached his hair to make him the blond bombshell Taeyong always believed he could be. “Your ghosts, it’s going well, isn’t it?”

“I guess,” Ten doesn’t really know. It’s not something that has a semblance of being measurable.

“You remember what I told you, yes?” She rubs little circles into his forehead. Ten nods.

 _Remember your empathy, but your empathy means nothing without your distance and compassion_. It’s a very complex statement that can probably only be understood by extremely smart philosophers that are all long gone, skeletons turned to dust, but Ten remembers it. His mother keeps rubbing soothing little circles, like she’s making sure her words stay put in his brain, and Ten melts under her touch.

He lazily opens his eyes and finds himself staring at their reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirror. Ten studies himself closely, from his bleached hair to his piercings, to his red shirt, his black sweatpants, and his pale-cold toes. He looks at the special slope of his nose that Taeyong calls Utterly-Perfect-Might-I-Say-Delightful, his eyebrows, the shape of his eyes and the shadows his eyelashes cast on his cheeks, his lips, his mouth, and then his chin. This is what people think of when they think of him: this is simply what he is to everyone else.

What face do ghosts have? It’s a question no-one has asked him, mostly due to the fact that the medium thing is a secret, but it’s a question he asks himself in contemplation. What face do ghosts have? Would you call it human? If something is dead, then is it still human?

What face do ghosts have? If Ten tried to answer, he’d say they have a variety of faces. There are ghosts who simply look dead, and there are ghosts like Kim-1922 who look dead but feel lively: there are ghosts who wear a veil of sadness, and ghosts who wear a darker veil of something heavier than that, weighed down by regret. There are ghosts that strike terror in Ten’s heart, faces that surprise him on the bus and leave him feeling so hollow, like something was stolen from him: and there are ghosts like the child following Daisy who don’t even feel out of place in the world of the living.

But unlike humans, ghosts choose to be seen, and that makes their faces different: ghosts vanish as much as they like to places unknown, and then they reappear to the world. It would seem like many appear to simply see each other, but there’s another reason under that, another reason that explains why Delaney-1973 rises from their grave simply to sit up from the ground for hours at a time, still as the world moves around them.

To have a face is to exist. To exist is to be, and to be dead is not to be: and as such, these gentle ghosts who do roam this gentle piece of earth, aren’t they dipping their cold toes into something long forgotten?

Ten blinks at his own face and purses his lips. Ghosts are strange. Like strangers he’d see in a bus. Rows of people, all different. Existing. Going someplace. Purposeful.

Some ghosts are scary, and some are not.

Like strangers you’d see in a bus.

Ten keeps staring at himself, at himself as his face, and then himself as his hand and the bracelet around his wrist. What face does Winwin have?

Between his thoughts, his dreams, his suppositions and his guesses, Ten has gone out looking for Winwin. He usually goes through the park, climbs above the fence, and lands with a thud on the other side. With his two feet on graveyard ground, he passes through his mantra, his great-grandmother's _I am seen, but I am not available. I am seen, but I am not heard, and I choose not to look_ ; silly words that don’t mean anything but mean everything to ghosts, letting them think that Ten is more in control of himself then he actually is. The back of the graveyard is always quiet, though, and he rarely comes across anyone or hears anything. Then he weaves between the small graves, the little lambs, and looks for Winwin.

There’s not much looking to do seeing as his grave has covered itself with ice. It’s been that way for three months; even in the summer, which isn’t particularly warm in the city but well above freezing point, it remained encased in ice. The little lamb is resting beneath inches of ice, placid, untouched. It’s like it’s trying to protect itself - or trying to protect something, someone, from the outside world. Ten will always bend down to press his hand against it.

Nothing ever happens. But he continues to try.

How he wishes to see Winwin with his own eyes: Winwin must be lovely, Ten has always and will always think so. Winwin should have lovely eyes to see the world with, and lovely lips to open around a giggle. He has lovely hands, Ten already knows that, cold because they’re made to be held. He has a lovely not-heart, Ten already knows that, has known so for years.

That’s why Ten can’t give up or let go. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

“I’m gonna go downstairs.” Ten announces. He lifts himself up, hands sinking onto the soft mattress, and his mother dismisses him with a wave. He does not, however, immediately go downstairs once he’s out of the bedroom: his feet are compelled, propelled, and before he knows it he’s opening his closet door.

The old offering box lies atop of a shelf, above his folded t-shirts.

Ten couldn’t let go of it. He emptied it of its candies save for a few, gathered in his grandmother’s old glass ashtray, and filled the rest of it with Winwin’s gifts. Not everything could fit in one box, hence the other shoebox under it, but this one has Ten’s favourites in it. He swears it whispers to him at night, sometimes. Indecipherable things.

He sets it on the floor and kneels before sticking his hands inside, rummaging around. He passes his fingers atop of a few seashells left during a summer, feeling the ridges against his digits, and buries his hand in the cluster of remnants of soft toys and knit clothes, including a small mitten with a kitten’s face.

Ten pulls out the toy mouse, a small, crocheted thing with blue buttons for eyes, and holds it close to his chest as he stores the box back where it belongs. It stays there when he exits his closet, and stays there when he slowly makes his way downstairs. He briefly takes what he needs from the kitchen and dining room before opening the front door and stepping outside on the old, sour-smelling wood for their front porch.

It’s a bit chillier than he expected, but he’ll make do.

Ten squats down and makes quick work when he takes a piece of pink chalk out and draws on the porch. It’s a circle he learned from his great-grandmother’s journal, one that he rigorously practiced but never used yet. He scribbles down the right symbols and traces out the correct angles through the floorboards, going through the motions under his breath. In a smaller circle contained in his spell, he places the toy mouse.

It’s like a mailbox for ghosts.

In the centre of the circle, Ten places a napkin, and one of the individually wrapped, double-yolked mooncakes from Auntie Zhong.

The wind rises as the circle glows, tousling Ten’s hair, and then the world settles back down. Only Winwin can access the circle and his contents, now.

The sunlight is yellow. From the gaps in the hedge, Ten can see the reflection of it against the polished granite of a few tombstones. The grass is a warm green, and the brown bark of the trees glow golden. The sky is blue, and the little black clouds seem like little black sheep spun out of soft wool.

There’s moments in life that feel like they have careful timing. Perhaps they were always planned from the start, or perhaps the human brain was made in such a way that it can quickly gather up every coincidence and make a prediction. Kun says that the universe sends signs, but that’s ‘cause he’s a Taurus and bitch-moon, or whatever he says. He might be right, though. Maybe the universe waits and waits and waits, having seen the past and already seen the future, and leans forward at the most opportune time to set things in motion.

If timing existed and Ten pretended that he understood timing, then the timing would be now. It would be today and here and right-now. If there was a sign to show, it would be now.

The wind is gentle, and Ten stays a little longer in the chilly, yellow sunlight before going back inside.

o.0.o

September 18. Seventeen years old. A pendant.

The mooncake is gone.

A small charm lies in its place, and when Ten picks it up to examine it, he finds that it’s a small, silver snowflake: at the center is a small crystal, probably fake, but he can’t help but gaze at it with such wonder.

Ten passes a thin silver chain through it. The colours match up almost perfectly. He wouldn’t be able to wear it outside of the house, not yet, anyways, he’s not that confident: but in the security of his bedroom and his cream coloured walls, Ten passes the necklace over his head. He looks at himself in the mirror for a while, admiring the pretty way it reflects the light when he moves just right, and slowly breathes out, a warm flutter overcoming him.

He tucks the necklace into his shirt.

The cold pendant kisses his chest, and Ten closes his eyes as a small smile makes its way to his lips.

o.0.o

September 27. Seventeen years old. The streetlight.

Johnny has a scary appetite, but Ten definitely did not bet on his little brother inheriting the same genes. There’s just something wrong about a twelve-year old eating more than him. _It’s ‘cause he’s gonna grow taller than you,_ Johnny said, and that left Ten sitting on the barstool, holding a slice of mushroom pizza with half the toppings fallen off, wondering why he’s friends with these people. Mark was soon too sleepy to function and Johnny hauled him up the stairs over his shoulders so that all his blood could rush to his head, and then threw him on his bed. Mark’s body slammed onto the mattress with a dry _whack!_ , but he was still out cold, probably dreaming of dumb things like arriving to school without his pants and Donghyuck making fun of him. It was mean, but they laughed.

Mark’s sleepiness was contagious, and soon Ten was waving goodbye at Johnny at the end of the path, full of pizza, soda, and a sense of accomplishment. He was able to speak with Mrs. Suh before she left for her date night with her husband and successfully secured a small part time job at their catering business, held in their large kitchen. Maybe he’ll finally find out what it is exactly that makes Mrs. Suh smell so good.

Ten hops onto the curb on the side of the road, carefully stretching his arms out as he balances himself on it, one step at a time. It rained during the time he was at Johnny’s and the dark road is wet, the pavement reflecting the streetlights and houselights in a way that can only be described as serene. He looks over the roofs to the general direction of Taeyong’s house - there’s still no resolution to their strange love triangle, the third party being idiocy. All Ten can do is sit back and continue watching it unfold.

He teeters to the side but catches himself in time, a proud smile on his lips when he rebalances himself.

The streetlights are brighter and more orange now: Ten doesn’t need to use his flashlight anymore. Being able to walk on a street and see where you’re going is indeed a blessing, and Ten can see every house, every tree, every bush and every shrub, as well as every car and the odd shiny reflection from it. The orangeness of it all is comforting, even if dark, lifeless houses are a little off-putting: the orangeness welcomes warmth, and with the wet pavement, it also appears as little fairy lights on the ground.

Ten looks up from his feet to take in the scenery, more confident on his balancing act. The house beside him has wheat planted at the front, poking out from the garden - soon the flowers will wilt as the ground starts to freeze at night, but for now, they’re bathed in an orange light, and the wheat billows gently.

In front of him, maybe eight houses away, the streetlight flickers.

Ten slows down, his shoes crunching on the cement. The next streetlight flickers in tandem, and then the next one, the strange affliction becoming contagious. Ten hops off the curb, alert.

The streetlight above him flickers, too. Ten is prepared. He’s aware.

One by one, the lights are killed. He holds his breath as the line of streetlights becomes dark, and finally, he’s plunged in a thick cover of darkness. He breathes out shakily. _Detach yourself_ , Ten remembers, and his heartbeat slows down.

He counts ten seconds of silence before something happens.

A small breeze surrounds him. It starts slowly, a quiet noise he hears from behind, and then it teases the back of his jacket before properly blowing. It’s not chilly, it’s not cold, but it announces a presence.

It’s almost… soft. Like a fall breeze that twirls leaves in the wind and graces the tip of your cheeks pink.

Ten’s heart beats, it beats louder, it beats quicker, it almost flutters: Ten relaxes and tenses simultaneously, clicking his Tamagotchis together to ground himself. _Detach yourself_ , Ten tells himself again, but his heart contests, it just _can’t_.

For the first time, the breeze surrounding him is sweet.

Despite the darkness, Ten closes his eyes and waits for the wind to rise and speak. He breathes in, out, and soon the wind is breathing with him, too.

A voice rises over the garden, its flowers, and the billowing wheat Ten cannot see:

“ _Did you mean it?_ ”

Ten’s heart catches in his throat and oh, how he wants to cry right now. Winwin’s voice is a bit older, a bit deeper, but it’s so clear.

“ _Did you?_ ”

His voice catches on the lilt of the question in a way that sounds so childish, like he’s scared to get hurt, get burned: Ten doesn’t move, steady as the flame of a candle, and clears his throat of his tears.

“I could never lie to you,” Ten tells his ghost, softer than the hand of a loved one.

Winwin breathes in with this sort of tremble that makes Ten raise his hands, searching for Winwin; he closes his fingers around the autumn air, but he holds a feeling.

“ _Did you really?_ ”

“I meant it, I’m sorry,” Ten says. “I meant it, I’m sorry and I miss you; from the sunrise to the sunset, from the horizon to the foot of my bed, I miss you. I miss you between the stars, I miss you between the crosses and the angels, I miss you. See? I’m putting all of these pretty words together for you, Winnie, I mean it. From the bottom of my heart, I mean it, for two years I’ve meant it.”

Their intermingled breaths are the only sound permeating the heavy silence.

“Won’t you come back to me?” Ten’s voice breaks. He clutches the front of his shirt, feeling the snowflake pendant under it. “Please?”

Winwin doesn’t reply, not in a long while. Ten blinks in the dark, unable to make out any shape or form. He can only wait like this, swallowing back any built-up grief that threatens to spill.

Ten’s good at waiting.

There’s a soft noise in the dark, like a whimper: Ten has the time to register the small ache in his heart to it before the wind rises.

“Winwin,” The wind surrounds him again, blowing upward, “Winwin! Don’t-” _Don’t leave me_ , Ten wants to say, but an ugly sob comes out instead as he thrusts his arm forward, hand reaching for the heavens.

The breeze is soft, a fall breeze that kisses every joint of your hand, and from Ten’s outstretched fingers, it sifts through like water.

Winwin is slipping through his fingers, Ten thinks, until the coldest touch known to living man interlaces with his fingers and presses against his palm.

It’s gone as quick as it came.

Ten breathes in, out, and the streetlight above him flickers back on. The lights stretching in front of him flicker back on in turn, and he’s left with the evidence that he is now alone.

His hand tingles, the lingering cold still clinging onto his fingers. He brings his hand up to inspect, flexing his fingers and carefully looking at every pink-tinged joint, but there’s nothing unusual about the way it looks.

Instinctively, Ten closes his fingers back into his palm.

Ten is holding hope.

o.0.o

October 1. Eighteen years old. The grass bed.

“ _Pick a person,”_ Taeyong’s voice filters through his cellphone’s speaker. “ _Any person._ ”

“Why?” Ten squints as he looks up to the popcorn ceiling. He’s hanging upside down from his bed, blood swirling in his head, but sometimes you just have to feel that particular strangeness.

“ _Listen, it’s because I filled out this quiz, and I’m pretty sure it’s rigged. There’s no way I could’ve gotten that answer.”_

“Was it those ‘ _is Hilary Duff your best friend’_ quizzes?”

“ _What? No. Ten, I’m twenty years old.”_

“Fine, what sort of quiz does a twen-- is that k.d. lang playing?”

“ _Huh?”_ He hears Taeyong shuffle around and the small steps of his feet, probably going to look down from the staircase. “ _Oh, my moms are dancing in the living room. Anyways, back to me.”_

Ten rolls his eyes as Taeyong settles back down in his bed. He hears him flip through a magazine. “ _Did you pick a person yet?”_

Ten curls his socked toes and purses his lips as he thinks. “... Yeah. Shoot.”

“ _Okay, so: you’re sitting in class, do you find yourself looking for them?”_

“I’m not in school?”

“ _Can you do your fucking job and_ imagine _for me?”_

“Why do I work so hard for you?” Ten snorts before applying himself to the task. “... I guess so, yeah.”

“ _Okay. There’s a new Lindsay Lohan movie coming out, who do you bring: your best friend, your sister, or them?”_

“Uh,” Ten doesn’t have a sister. It’s been a while since he went to the movies, it would be fun to have a first time with someone else. “Them.”

“ _Have you noticed the way they smile and laugh?”_

“...Yeah.” His voice comes out softer than he intended, but Taeyong doesn’t seem to notice.

“ _You phone rings. Who do you think it is: your best friend, your mom, or them?”_

Ten furrows his brow. “Who do I think it is, or who do I want it to be?”

“ _I don’t know, just answer already!”_

“Um, them.”

“ _Do you find yourself thinking about their likes and dislikes?”_ It sounds like Taeyong’s tapping a pencil against the magazine, impatient.

Ten’s slid down to the floor, his hips hanging off the side of the bed. The wood’s cool on his back and he turns his head towards the window, letting it cool his cheek as well. “I guess so, yeah.”

“ _Do you know too many random facts about them?”_

Ten knows the most about him. “In some way, I do.”

 _“Last question.”_ Ten bites his bottom lip and plays with his snowflake pendant, twisting it between his fingers. “ _How often do you think of them: sometimes but not all the time, maybe once in a while, all the time, or never, that’s creepy!”_

“I… I guess… I don’t know. Maybe a lot.” “ _That’s not an option.”_

“Taeyong, I don’t even know what we’re doing - can you just choose for me?” Ten whines.

“ _Fine. Okay, let’s see here…”_ Taeyong’s mumbling and he can hear his pencil scribbling. Ten rolls his eyes, a favourite activity to do around Taeyong, and looks out the window.

A flash of light appears.

Ten sits up.

Frost slowly starts to cover his window from the other side. His hand holding his phone starts to shake a bit. Taeyong’s voice slowly comes through his agitation.

“ _... Oh you’re fucking kidding me. I knew it. This is rigged - I asked a random person about a random person and we both got the absolute worst result of ‘Gotcha! You’re knee-deep in l--”_

“Taeyong, I have to go sorry bye love you!” Ten blurts out before hanging up, throwing his phone on his bed. He scrambles to his windowsill, almost slipping and catching himself on the frame in time. He pulls his sleeve down to make a sweater paw and starts to wipe the condensation away, his heartbeat quickening at every swipe.

Ten briefly looks up from his work, his breath shallow, all chest.

And he looks.

And he looks.

And he looks.

Ten’s arm stops, still across the window, and his whole body stops with it, too. And slowly, slowly, slowly, Ten blinks, keeping his eyes closed for a good few seconds before daring to open them again.

On the other side of the glass is the most beautiful boy in the world.

The most beautiful boy in the universe is staring at him. The most beautiful boy in all of space-time is looking at him. For a millisecond, Ten briefly considers if he was put on this earth just to marvel at this boy.

Winwin is there: Winwin is finally here. He’s here, all lovely hair and eyes and nose and lips and cheeks, and neck, and shoulders and arms and blinking at him, pressing a lovely hand to the window that hypnotizes Ten: and in the blink of eye, he’s back on the ground downstairs, looking up at Ten from beside his mother’s pink four o-clock bushes.

The thud of Ten’s feet as he somehow safely manages his way down the stairs is just as loud and thunderous and his own heartbeat. He collides with the wall when he’s at the entrance, grabbing at his coat, and quickly slipping his shoes on, too pressed to tie them. Soon he hurls himself outside (not forgetting to lock the door), the autumn chill greeting him, and there is Winwin, still waiting for him.

It’s unreal.

Ten stands there, two feet on the ground, facing Winwin's two very real feet.

He catches his breath by staring. Winwin is now a little taller than him. He has soft, curly black hair from which an elf ear pokes out. He has these eyes that Ten wants to call elegant, but somehow, they have a shine to them that renders them something different and unnamed but good, better. He has a good nose, because all noses are good, cheeks that were once-upon-a-time rosy, no doubt, and lovely pillowy lips of the same past-rosiness. He wears this soft, tan brown wool coat, the ones with front toggles and loop fastenings, all classical and somehow coming off as childish; like it grew with him. There's a softness to him overall, and there he is, waiting for Ten the same way Ten did for him.

Life could be planned, life could be not; life could have timing, maybe, a darling mechanism to ensure that everything falls in line and in place. Ten feels that it does end up that way sometimes. There is, by no means, luck: the marble was already set rolling, teetering and tottering and setting things in motion until your tiny piece of the universe clicked into place. Your heart feels it happen. It's something that you know.

But right now, Ten doesn't know anything. He doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know where to look. He doesn't know if he should feel scared, and he doesn't know why he's wondering that in the first place; he doesn't know why his heart is on a cliff, why it watches the blue water down, down, crash to white, crash to the pale-grey colour of Winwin's skin. He doesn't know why Winwin is the most beautiful boy in the world. He doesn't know what to say.

Slowly, through the blur of these thoughts, Winwin smiles.

The wind rises. Like the swell of music in a movie. It swells, and it runs across the hedge separating them from the graveyard; it rises to the trees above them and Ten can't breathe anymore, and still, Winwin smiles, gentle and soft and forgiving. Yellow ginko leaves flutter down around his ghost - the marble is sent spiralling down by the wind, and it clicks into place.

Ten smiles back, an undeniable sense of warmth spreading through his chest.

It's enough to simply know that Winwin appears to him now, today, under a shower of ginko leaves, the afternoon sunlight golden as it peeks through the cover of trees, and it's enough to know that Winwin just simply is the most beautiful boy in the world.

And maybe Ten doesn't know why his heart is falling, why no part of him stops it or worries, why the ocean waters are so welcoming when it finally hits the blue surface: but he's washed over with warmth, and perhaps, just this once, it's better not to know why.

Winwin turns around, a few leaves fluttering as he spins on his heel, and starts walking down the path. Ten follows him, an invisible distance setting them apart that makes sure Winwin’s always a few steps ahead of him. They stay silent. Ten’s heartbeat accompanies each of his steps as they navigate through a few narrow streets in an unfamiliar path, a few scattered leaves crunching under his feet. It’s like Winwin’s playing coy, and Ten lets him.

The sky is pale blue, today, and the white clouds lay a little low. Most of the trees are now starting to turn colours, yellows and reds speckling through green and overtaking it, sometimes. Some trees they pass by are turning purple, and all while following Winwin, Ten quickly bends down to pick up a perfectly shaped leaf.

Winwin leads him between two small three-storey apartments, backed up against the graveyard’s fence. There’s a hole in the fence, big enough to let people pass through it; the residents in the area must go through here for a stroll. Winwin simply walks through the fence, climbing up the small hill until he’s at the top, and watches Ten follow through the hole.

Ten keeps staring at Winwin’s back as they walk through the graveyard. No one really takes notice of them, too busy in their own worlds. He wonders if his back would be warm, and of course it wouldn’t; but perhaps it would be warm in a different way.

Finally, they arrive at the children’s graves. Winwin’s standing in front of the lot awkwardly, his arms stuck to his sides, and it makes Ten smile.

“Hello,” Ten breaks their silence. Winwin’s head endearingly snaps up to look at him, eyes wide and blinking. It reminds Ten of those dolls whose eyes lay closed when you have them lie down. “Hello,” he repeats, and Winwin bows his head down, almost shy.

“Hello.” Winwin finally says, eyes looking up from the grass. And then “Hello,” more confidently, louder, and then “Hello,” now facing Ten, and finally “Hello!”, breaking out into the largest, ear-splitting grin Ten has ever seen.

“Hello!” Ten practically shouts back, his grin matching Winwin’s, and Winwin laughs, first with his squeaks, then with his giggle, and finally, with all his body shaking, he laughs, how he laughs!

How Ten has missed that laughter.

It doesn’t take much time before they’re lying down by Winwin’s grave, the old graves spaced apart just enough to fit two boys in between them. They don’t touch each other, and maybe that’s for the better considering the autumn chill, but it has Ten a little disappointed.

“So…” Ten starts off. “So you believed me?” He turns around to face Winwin’s ear.

Winwin slowly turns around to face him too, and Ten’s left a little breathless by their proximity. His expressions are reserved when he carefully puts together his answer, perfect little teeth biting at the cushion of his bottom lip, before he nods.

“You know that I missed you a lot, right?”

Winwin nods.

“You know that I’m sorry, too?”

Winwin nods again, but this time he lets his lip go. “...But I don’t understand why.”

“Hm… y’know how I told you what my mom does?” Winwin shifts his eyes away, mumbling a small _yeah_. “Well, the day after I got chased by… I don’t really know, she just- to keep me safe, she cut me off, y’know? ‘Cause I was in danger.”

“It was scary,” Winwin quietly says. “That day. I don’t know what it was either. I thought you would die.”

Ten laughs. “Then we could’ve been together.”

“No!” Winwin raises himself on his arms, delicate brow furrowed. Ten’s eyes widen. “No, I mean. You… being alive makes you pretty.” He says.

“Being alive makes me pretty?”

“No, that’s not the word.... Being alive is something for you.” Winwin returns to a quiet voice, lowering himself back down after his outburst. “It’s a Ten thing.”

“A Ten thing, huh? That makes sense, because being pretty doesn’t have anything to do with being alive.” Ten smiles, teasing. Winwin’s confused again, an adorable expression that Ten feels like he’ll see often.

“But you’re all pink,” Winwin says. “It’s pretty.”

“But look at you, Winwinnie, you’re all pretty like a doll without being pink. I’ve seen people pinker than you that don’t even compare.”

Ten notices the way Winwin shies away from the compliment. Ghosts must not be complimented often. He’ll have to ease into it with him. He twirls a blade of grass between his fingers, carefully constructing his next question. It’s heavy in his mouth when he speaks it, and it’s heavy enough to pull Winwin’s delicate features down.

“Were you avoiding me?”

A mild wind blows. It ruffles Ten’s hair and raises goosebumps on his skin, and when Winwin furrows his brow even more, the wind blows a little harder. Ten reaches out to cup Winwin’s face, only to touch the air itself: and gently, following the gentle outline of Winwin’s face, he presses his hand against the very cold nothing. Even if he doesn’t feel anything, Winwin closes his eyes, and the wind dies down.

Winwin finally nods.

“Why?” Ten asks.

“...Because you’re pink,” Winwin says. “I knew that you were going to leave me one day… I thought that the time had come.”

“Oh,” Ten’s heart pinches, but it can’t find anything to say. His hand is frigid, like touching a metal pole in winter, but he keeps it against Winwin’s cheek as his ghost licks his lips, searching for his next words.

“From the start, I didn’t know that- because humans leave offerings for ghosts to stay away, sometimes, or only for family. Humans get scared, so they think it’ll make me go away. But you kept doing it like you wanted to. And I should’ve kept my distance, but… it looked like fun. It looked nice. It looked like… someone cared.” Winwin recounts, twisting his hands together. “Then I got scared you would stop caring. So I stopped for you. Left the box alone. But I missed it,” his voice wavers. “I missed it. So I came back.” Ten looks down to his wrist. Maybe he should put Winwin’s bracelet back. “I liked it when you came back,” Ten confesses. Winwin gives a tight little smile in return.

“And I… I kept getting scared. It’s not that it wasn’t fun,” Winwin adds with a worried expression. “But I just… it was hard, sometimes.”

Ten retracts his hand to warm it up between his thighs. It could’ve been that, he wonders, that single sad day where WIniwn chased Ten away. A mourning sort of day for not being pink, for fear of not being good enough for pink; it’s heartbreaking. “And then I stopped seeing you...” Ten mumbles, and Winwin nods.

“Yeah,” Winwin says, voice gone all soft like it’d break if it were any louder. “I slept a lot.”

“You slept?”

“Mm, I just- it’s… I close my eyes,” Winwin explains, closing his own eyes and shifting in the grass as if to make himself comfortable. “When the time would get too long, I used to do this a lot, before I met you. I feel myself get cold and disappear. Like I’m in a deep darkness, like the outer space you talked about, and someone keeps turning the clocks forward and backwards and forwards. When I wake up, the seasons change. My grave stays the same. And the hours after that feel so long, and I’ll go back to sleep.”

Ten pokes at the ground. It must be when Winwin’s grave freezes over; how cursed it is to live eternally. “Do you dream when you sleep?”

Winwin shrugs. They stay in silence for a few minutes, the trees gently rustling in the distance. There’s a radio playing in the distance from a nearby house, currently tuned to a pop station. Lying together like this, facing each other like this, it all feels so normal, as if two years never passed. They’re just two boys in a graveyard between pinkness and greyness, and nothing else in the world should really matter: the world should know better than to intrude.

Winwin’s such a normal boy when he’s with Ten like this.

“But you came back,” Ten states. “You came back to me.”

“I did,” Winwin bites his bottom lip again, and Ten can’t stop his smile as it spreads.

“I waited for you, and you came back to me. You waited for me, and I came back to you, too.”

Ten’s smile is contagious, it seems, because Winwin soon wears it. “Yeah, just like that.”

They keep talking, words coming so easily to Ten as he prattles on about Kun’s troubles with his first semester of university, liking the way Winwin leans in and listens with his eyes as they go wide when Ten explains what classes Kun is taking; he talks about Taeyong and Johnny, about the strange quiz he took earlier, and they both stare up at the sky as they try to figure out what the point of the quiz was. They don’t find an answer, and when they ask the sky above them for one, there is no reply. Ten talks about the black cat he saw last winter, and Winwin sits up properly, trying to look past the trees where the playground hides. He can’t help but laugh at the sight, coaxing Winwin back down with a promise that they’ll go looking for the cat one of these days.

Winwin talks, too, easing into his thoughts and dialogue before he takes off, rambling about the squirrels he’d seen fight, about the strange couple living in the pink house near the soldiers’ graves who always forget their laundry outside and fight about it with their window open, about how there was a golden earring nestled in the crook of two branches high above a tree, but when he took it in his hands, he dropped it and couldn’t find it in the grass below him. He asks questions about Ten’s life and learns about catering companies and cakes and how Ten normally doesn’t eat the dill pickle in a sandwich, but if Johnny’s not there to eat it he feels guilty about throwing it away, so he pinches his nose and gets rid of it quickly. Winwin asks about dill pickles and about Johnny with dill pickles, and with this twinkle in his eye, this small shimmer Ten doesn’t know if he should categorize it into wonder or sadness or both, asks what sharing a meal feels like. The shadows cast from the graves keep stretching around them, the sun becoming more and more golden until it takes a tinge of pink: the light doesn’t play on Winwin’s skin the way it does with Ten’s, but he’s pretty nonetheless.

It was worth waiting this long. Winwin’s talking about a crow who comes by the graveyard every now and then, leaving behind shiny trinkets that Winwin will sometimes take, when Ten starts imagining what days with Winwin would look like; what tomorrow or after tomorrow might be, what after a week might be, and how much time it would take it build back the time they’ve lost. He reaches out to him again, unable to touch him but capable of contending himself with pretending, and how becoming Winwin is under Ten’s careful hand.

Winwin’s eyes can catch the sunlight, and it should be impossible for ghosts to have such lovely, honey coloured eyes, but Winwin is a contradiction, if not the first Ten has ever known. Ten sits up and motions Winwin to follow.

“... Here,” Ten says, holding out the perfect purple leaf he picked up earlier. “There aren’t purple trees in the graveyard.”

Winwin stares at the leaf for a while before slowly raising his arm, grabbing the stem just above Ten’s fingers. Ten holds his breath as he slowly lets go. The leaf stays in Winwin’s hand, standing tall, and something about the image makes his heart stir.

Winwin brings the leaf up to his eyes. He twirls it around, studying its shape, colour, and veins, and holds it up to the sunlight. His eyes are red, Ten notices, and before he can say anything, a tear rolls down his cheek. One tear becomes two, and two becomes three, and soon Winwin is silently crying.

“What’s wrong?” Ten asks, leaning in to catch Winwin’s expression when his head bows down. “Oh, Winnie, did I do something wrong?”

Winwin shakes his head, his tears pearling under his chin and dripping down. “Then what is it?”

The wind blows again, this time more of a breeze. A few leaves fall around them, twirling in the wind, and Winwin sniffles.

“I missed you too,” Winwin says. The breeze blows again, and Ten realizes that his own cheeks are wet. He wipes his eyes before directing his attention back to Winwin. “I missed you a lot, I’m sorry- I’m, I’m sorry I thought that you didn’t w-want me anymore, I’m sorry for hurting you.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Ten coos. “It doesn’t matter anymore. We’re both here now, right?”

Winwin bites his bottom lip again, blinking a few more tears away before nodding. “Right.”

“Can you wipe your tears away for me?” Ten asks. Winwin brings his sleeves up to his face and pats his face dry, the motion so dainty that it draws a chuckle out of Ten. “Yeah, like that. How cute.”

“Stop it,” Winwin whines, covering his face with his hands. “I’m not done being sad.” He sniffles again.

“We have all the time in the world to cry an ocean’s worth of tears, Winnie. I’m here, and you’re here, and tomorrow will be the same. Trust me.”

“Promise,” Winwin’s pretty eyes zero in on some soft, fragile part of Ten’s soul. “Promise me?”

“I promise.”

Winwin twirls the leaf again, looking impossibly small when he’s sat like that. “Then I promise too.”

The smile that slowly blooms on Winwin’s lips is a strange, peculiar thing, for at one split moment of time, his smile is pink.

Liveliness, what’s liveliness? What’s death if Winwin is there? Gloominess, what’s gloominess? These are simply things that Ten has to live with, he supposes, without ever grasping their meaning. Between the cross-shaped, book-shaped, regular-shaped and heart-shaped gravestones, what duty does Ten have? Extraordinary people don’t exist, only extraordinary circumstances do, but right here and right now, Ten recognizes that he has a burden to carry, but right here and right now, for today and this afternoon, it feels like the gift it used to be. When the sun sets in half an hour, Ten still won’t really know his purpose like his mother does. Ten doesn’t even know Winwin’s purpose.

All he knows is that he doesn’t want to go home yet, but the world sadly isn’t confined to the both of them.

“I want to leave first,” Winwin tells him when Ten announces his departure. He assumes Winwin means that he’ll blink back to whatever oblivion ghosts contend themselves with.

“Why?”

“I… I just want to.” Winwin says, looking down. Ten gives him a smile that they briefly share.

“Come see me tomorrow.” Ten says. “You can hang around me. I’m going over to Mrs. Suh’s to help out, it’ll be fun for you. Just stay quiet.”

Winwin nods. “Then… see you tomorrow.” He says, quietly at first, and then he brightens up. “See- see you tomorrow!”

“See you tomorrow!” Ten laughs.

Winwin laughs, and the wind rises around them as it gets louder and brighter. The wind’s warm, and with the gentle glint of Winwin’s eyes, Ten swears feeling the wind kiss him; not simply brush against his skin, but kiss him with an emotion, on his hands and on his cheeks. Like the way an angel’s light would feel. Winwin blooms into another smile, and then he is gone.

Ten understands why Winwin wanted to be the first one to go, because now he’s looking down to the grass where Winwin laid and to the boy-shaped imprint left in it.

 _You should know, shouldn’t you?_ A voice says in his head. _You should, shouldn’t you?_

Ten shoves his hands into his pockets and clicks his tamagotchis together.

 _Know what?_ he replies, but for some reason, it feels incredibly shallow.

o.0.o

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'd like to thank Mitski for sustaining every sad emotion in this chapter.  
> chapter 3... will happen one day!  
> please imagine ten's mom as a milf  
> also! i wrote this mostly in november and somehow predicted the 90s love hockey concept  
> thank you for reading! if you left comments before or leave comments now, thank you for your time and attention, and the same goes for kudos!


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